Whale Hunter - Couverture rigide

Haley, Nelson Cole

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1848320965 ISBN 13 : 9781848320963

Editeur : Seaforth Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

This is the narrative of a harpooner in the whale-ship Charles W Morgan, whose four-year voyage in 1849-1853 took him from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the South Pacific and on around the world. Before the days of the whale-gun and its explosive warhead, whaling was a dangerous and far from one-sided pursuit indeed, one of Haley s earliest experiences was the destruction of his boat by a whale attack, and even when the harpoon hit the target, the whaleboat would be towed at speed until the wounded whale was exhausted, a terrifying experience that was known to whalemen as a Nantucket sleigh ride . Haley s narrative covers all the excitements and dangers of the business like trying to work on a slippery whale carcass, while the surrounding waters seethed with sharks but also encompasses the long hours of boredom, when sailors entertained each other with tall tales. Many are recounted, and, surprisingly, some of the least likely can be corroborated. In fact, Haley s anecdotes of the South Seas in transition form one of the great appeals of the book. On the one hand there were still hostile islands with murderous inhabitants, while others had been so strongly influenced by Christian missionaries that pleasures of the flesh were now entirely off-limits. Whaling was, in effect, the first oil industry, a high-risk business where huge fortunes were to be made. Haley s is the authentic voice of those that chose its dangers.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

NELSON COLE HALEY was only 17 when the ship set sail, but he was already a hardened seaman and experienced enough to be rated as a boat-steerer and ultimately a harpooner, the most responsible position in any whaler. He wrote the account about the time of his marriage in 1864, when he had given up seafaring.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Seaforth Publishing
• Date d'édition: 2011
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1848320965
• ISBN 13: 9781848320963
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 224
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible