Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase - book review

 

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS

Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex by Owen Chase

In the early 1800s at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution demand for lubricants and illuminating fuel oil drove demand for whale byproducts to price levels that skyrocketed the whaling industry. This story is a part of that frenzied rush to harpoon every last whale, akin to the manic determination to exterminate every last buffalo and passenger pigeon.

This true and gripping narrative is stranger than fiction. The second half of the book is a collection of more stranger than fiction whaling thrillers.

EXCERPTS:

From the accounts of those who were in the early stages of the fishery concerned in it, it would appear that the whales have been driven, like the beasts of the forest, before the march of civilization into remote and more unfrequented seas, until, now they are followed by the enterprise and perseverance of our seamen even to the distant coasts of Japan.

The ship Essex, commanded by Captain George Pollard, junior, was fitted out at Nantucket, and sailed on the 12th day of August, 1819, for the Pacific Ocean, on a whaling voyage. Of this ship I was first mate. She had lately undergone a thorough repair in her upper works, and was at that time, in all respects, a sound, substantial vessel: she had a crew of twenty-one men, and was victualed and provided for two years and a half. We left the coast of America with a fine breeze, and steered for the Western Islands.

Of the passage of this famous Cape it may be observed that strong westerly gales and a heavy sea are its almost universal attendants: the prevalence and constancy of this wind and sea necessarily produce a rapid current, by which vessels are set to leeward; and it is not without some favorable slant of wind that they can in many cases get round at all. The difficulties and dangers of the passage are proverbial; but as far as my own observation extends (and which the numerous reports of the whale men corroborate), you can always rely upon a long and regular sea; and although the gales may be very strong and stubborn, as they undoubtedly are, they are not known to blow with the destructive violence that characterizes some of the tornadoes of the western Atlantic Ocean.

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