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throughout the 19th and 20th centuries
the world powers scrambled to paint the
last empty spots on their maps
for every successful expedition there
was an equally ill-fated one
from mungo park’s second african
expedition
that ended in his team being murdered by
an onslaught of arrows
to scott’s fatal mission to the south
pole
and shackleton’s endurance but
it could be argued these all pale in
comparison
to the tragic voyage of the whale ship
essex
our journey begins in early 19th century
nantucket
this tiny island off the coast of
massachusetts
was once the global epicenter of the
vast and
extremely profitable whaling industry
crude oil extraction as an industry
didn’t yet
exist and so whale oil was the must-have
commodity
used to lubricate machinery and
illuminate city streets
it literally greased the cogs of the
industrial revolution
which if you haven’t heard was quite
important
the ocean contained a seemingly
unlimited bounty of whales
brimming with oily goals and many an
intrepid salty sea dog
was keen to risk life and limb to obtain
it
in nantucket’s harbour an endless
procession of whaling ships
embarked as others returned from far-off
lands
one of these ships was the essex
captained by george pollard jr
and manned by a crew of 20.
essex was 20 years old by this point and
had seen many profitable whaling voyages
and so as it had before on the 12th of
august
1819 she set sail for the south pacific
on a round trip the crew expected to
take between two to three years
but the voyage seemed doomed from the
start
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after only two days at sea and still
thousands of miles from its destination
the essex encountered a storm and almost
sunk
the storm was brief but the ship was
badly damaged
losing two of its five whaling boats
repairs were made but a seed of doubt
had been planted in the crew’s minds
who now began to wonder if the storm was
a bad
omen unfortunately for them the man in
charge
captain pollard waved off their concerns
as
unfounded superstitious nonsense and
elected to continue with the voyage
the essex made slow progress
encountering many more storms
and very few whales one of the crew
members
henry dewitt decided enough was enough
and deserted the essex during a routine
stop-off
on the ecuadorian coast a decision
i doubt he ever came to regret
the essex continued to fail in its
efforts to seek out any decent whaling
action
finding most of the known whaling ground
to have already been depleted
eventually they ran into other whalers
who told them
of a newly discovered hunting ground a
mere
2500 nautical miles away
where there was supposedly more whales
than you could shake a harpoon at
buoyed by the news captain pollard and
his crew set
course for this new destination
on the way they decided to drop in at
the galapagos islands
to stock up on supplies this of course
didn’t mean popping into the local
service station for a few scotch eggs
and a chocolate bar
it meant helping themselves to the local
population of tortoises
360 of them to be exact
tortoises made for the perfect food on
long voyages at sea
not only were they tasty and nutritious
but they could also be stacked
conveniently on their shelves
where they would continue to live a
miserable existence
without food or water for upwards of a
year
unbeknownst to the crew of the essex
they would soon have more in common with
those tortoises
than they would ever have hoped
before leaving the galapagos islands the
essex crew
not content with devastating the
tortoise population decided to take one
last
crap on mother nature a playful prank
caused a small fire which soon escalated
into a huge fire
that engulfed the entirety of charles
island
almost completely stripping it of its
flora
and fauna it’s believed this fire caused
the extinction of quite a few species on
the island
the crew quickly raised anchor and
vacated
like a bunch of abashed schoolchildren
captain pollard
was furious at the damage they’d caused
the fire only fueled to the belief that
the essex was cursed
but by now it was too late to turn back
on the 20th of november 1820
more than a year after leaving nantucket
the essex finally reached the hunting
grounds they’d been told about
the crew weren’t disappointed the ocean
before them was bustling with whale
activity
it appeared their luck had changed
the men lowered the whaling boat into
the ocean and immediately gave chase to
a large pod of sperm whales
whaling in the 19th century was a brutal
occupation
whalers would row their boats as close
as possible to their intended target
before throwing a harpoon into it as
hard as they could
once harpoons the whale would pull the
whaling boat along
with frightening pace in what whalers
referred to
as a nantucket sleigh ride
as you can imagine the whales were less
than keen on these sleigh rides
much preferring to be left alone to do
whatever it is that
whales normally do one particularly
large sperm whale
seemed to take great offense at seeing
his mates being repeatedly harpooned
by the crew of the essex and so decided
to take matters
into his own hands and no
i didn’t just mistake my mammal
appendages
whales actually do have hands
inside a whale’s flippers are finger
bones
remarkably similar to that of a human
anyway this particular bad tempered
whale
was about 26 meters long and weighed
roughly 80 tons
it tied up the port side of the essex
before charging it
like an enormous battering wrap the crew
aboard the essex initially presumed it
to be
an accidental collision whales aren’t
typically known to be aggressive
but to their horror the dazed whale
resurfaced and appeared to gather his
senses
before taking game and charging them for
a second
blow this time he rammed the ship right
in the port bow
before disappearing into the murky
depths of the ocean
presumably to buy a whale-sized headache
tablet
unfortunately for the crew of the essex
the damage
had already been done and the ship began
to take on water
the whale hunters who’d earlier departed
on whaling boats
returned to the essex to be greeted by
their panicked comrades
captain pollard immediately sensed that
something terrible had taken place
in his absence he asked his first mate
owen chase what happened to which he
grimly replied
we have been stoved by a whale
realizing no time could be spared they
boarded the sinking essex
and salvaged all they could this
amounted to
a few tortoises a musket 65 gallons of
fresh water
and 600 pounds of heart attack a type of
flavorless biscuit
made from flour and water not fancying
their chances of rowing across
thousands of miles of ocean they grabbed
material
and tools so that they could fit the
whaling boats with makeshift sails
most importantly they retrieved captain
pollard’s navigational equipment
which would be essential if they stood
any chance of making it back to dry
land as the essex continued its one-way
journey to the ocean floor
the crew gathered in the free whaling
boats to divide
their lackluster supplies they estimated
that if each man lift off half a pint of
water
and one biscuit a day they could make
the provisions last
for 60 days the nearest islands were
about 1
200 miles away in french polynesia
captain pollard believed these islands
were their best hope for survival
but his crew weren’t keen on the idea
believing this area of the south pacific
to be rife with cannibal tribes
oh the irony instead they chose to head
towards
chile which was further away but still
achievable within their 60-day limit
the extra distance however left very
little room for error
days and nights of sapping hunger
dehydration and sunburn followed
the whale boats were continuously
battered by storms
compounding the crew’s misery to make
matters even worse
during the whale attack the tack bread
became sudden with sea water
and now it had dried out it was infused
with salt
and exacerbated their already
excruciating first
a month of this torture passed by then
quite by chance they spied a speck of
land on the horizon
they rode towards it as fast as their
starving frames would allow
desperately hoping to find food water
shelter
and maybe even civilization
but once ashore it soon became apparent
that this wasn’t the island paradise
they’d hoped for
the sailors had found themselves on the
uninhabited henderson island
and outside of a few small birds and
crabs
the only food in great abundance was
pepper grass
which did little to satiate their
overwhelming hunger
captain pollard and his crew were forced
to face the reality
that they were rapidly exhausting what
little provisions this
tiny spit of land had to offer and
with the knowledge that the island was
far away from any known trade routes or
fishing lanes
they knew their chances of being
discovered were pretty much non-existent
their only hope for survival was to
continue their journey
to chile which was still thousands of
miles away
this would certainly mean more arduous
days alone at sea
with little food or water but with the
island running on empty
they were left with no other choice
three crew members opted to stay behind
presumably because the force of seeing
their days out munching on grass
seemed marginably less terrible than
taking their chances on the ocean
once again the 17 remaining crew members
loaded up the boats with island
provisions
before setting sail for easter island on
the west coast of chile
little over a week later the men had
eaten the meager supplies from the
island
and once again the hard salty tack bread
was their dish of the day more bad news
came when they realized they drifted
further south than they’d meant to
and were now way off course their only
hope
was to change their destination and head
for masatiera
these days known as robinson crusoe
island
only a few days later second mate
matthew joy
succumbed to illness and died he was
buried at sea
as was the custom it’s hard to imagine
what must have been going through his
surviving crewmates minds
as they watched their friend’s body
disappear into the dark depths of the
ocean
little did they know that joy was one of
the lucky ones
a few days later just when it seemed
morale couldn’t get any lower
another storm hit the free whaling boats
in the melee one of the boats were
separated from the others
as the storm subsided owen chase
alongside fellow crewmen
richard peterson isaac cole benjamin
lawrence
and thomas nickerson desperately scanned
the ocean for the others
but the search proved fruitless the
group
was now divided in two
the five men on chase’s boat would have
to continue their journey alone
i say five men it wasn’t five for very
long
as the oldest member of the crew richard
patterson
decided that he too preferred the murky
depths
over salty biscuits and sunstroke and
julie popped his clogs like matthew joy
before him
his body was sewn into his clothes and
plunged into the ocean
another month of relentless misery
passed before
isaac hall became the next crew member
to die
only this time the three surviving men
were hesitant to follow
seafaring customs and collectively
made a chilling decision despite his
body now resembling an emaciated bag of
bones
coal suddenly looked awfully tasty to
the starving men
who wasted no time in preparing his
flesh
before digging in finding the meat a
little
sinewy they focused their attention on
his heart
liver and lungs they made the best of
what was left of him
before committing his remains to the
ocean
meanwhile the other two whaling boats
had also become separated
one of these boats carrying three of the
essex crew
would never be seen again although
months later
a very similar looking whaling boat
containing free skeletons
did wash up on ducy island which all
seemed a little too coincidental
if you ask me over in captain pollard’s
boat
they too had resorted to cannibalism and
had begun eating their dead
crewmates unfortunately the four
surviving
men were now stubbornly refusing to die
of natural causes
how inconsiderate meaning there was an
obvious lack of dead bodies for the
desperate men to consume
so they decided to draw lots
to see which of them would be sacrificed
and eaten so that the others may stand a
small chance at survival captain
pollard’s cousin the aptly named
owen coffin drew the short straw
the young lad was a mere 17 years old
this was his first and ultimately last
whaling trip
the captain who’d been sworn to protect
him offered to take his place
but coffin stoically answered no
i like my lot as well as any other
lots were drawn again to determine his
executioner and
coffin’s close friend charles ramsdale
was fated to carry out
the unthinkable deed coffin was shot in
the back of the head
and his body consumed
a few days later basilee ray died of
natural causes
and he too found himself on the menu
89 days after the essex had been
attacked by a sperm whale
owen chase benjamin lawrence and thomas
nicholson
would be rescued by a ship called the
indian
which had spotted their whale boat
drifting aimlessly in the ocean
four days later the other whale boat
containing captain pollard
and charles ramstall was also discovered
this time by a fellow nantucket whaler
the dophon the captain and ramsdell
were found gnawing on the remains of
their deceased crewmates
it is said that by this point the men
were so delusional
that they attacked their rescuers in a
desperate attempt to protect
their precious cargo of bones
a subsequent rescue mission was sent out
to henderson island where the three crew
members had opted out of returning to
sea
miraculously all three men were alive
and well
this took the survival count of the
essex up to eight
twelve had died seven had been consumed
by their shipmates
amazingly captain pollard would return
to the ocean
and survive a further two shipwrecks
before eventually concluding
that sailing the seven seas probably
wasn’t the best occupation for him
after hanging up his sextant he lived to
the ripe old age of 78.
until his death he would commemorate his
fallen crewmates by fasting each
november the 20th
the anniversary of the devastating whale
attack
first mate owen chase also returned to
the ocean
and for almost 20 years forged out a
successful career
as a whaler unsurprisingly he never got
over the events of the essex
and lived out the remainder of his days
in a mental institute
but perhaps the biggest legacy left by
the true story of the whale ship essex
was by the perpetrator of the attack the
infamous
giant sperm whale which succumbed
pollard and his crew
to their cannibalistic fate news of the
whale’s attack and the subsequent events
of the voyage
quickly spread around the globe and
eventually found their way to author
hermann melville melville was captivated
by the story of the essex
and in particular the barnacle-ridden
leviathan that had sunk it
eventually immortalizing the whale
in his 1851 novel moby dick
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