Hardy Whale-Men Still Risk Their Lives for Oil

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 41 (Supplement)

Hardy Whale-Men Still Risk Their Lives for Oil

Ancient Trade Is Still Extant In Cook Strait

B EFORE ever farmer cleared an acre of virgin forest, or sheep nibbled a blade of our lush pasture grass, men hunted whales for their oil in New Zealand waters. The} 7 do so still to-day. The Dominion's oldest, if no longer her most important, industry has adopted new and modern ways, more deadly and efficient than have been practised ever before, or anywhere else in the world. Even so, in spite of this latter-day commercialism there is still a certain aura of romance, a spice of danger, in going down tcf the great waters to harry the mightiest beast that swims. " Long and long ago the first wandering whaleships chanced on the New Zealand coast to replenish their stores of wood and water, and with eager interest noted that humpback, cachalot and right whale passed this way on their yearly migration from Antarctic waters to breed in tropic seas. Thereafter annually the whaleships called. In 1794 the keels of the_ famous house of Enderby put in to Kororareka. Thirty years later 300 ships hunted off the coast each season. At first they- held at sea, stripping and trying out the blubber wherever they killed their whale, and deeming it reckless to hazard crew and craft and cargo by venturing within the reach of the wild cannibal Maori tribes. But later adventurous captains, runagate sailors, established stations on the coast, and the bay whaling era began. Almost every early settlement on the coast centred round the whaling trade. In 1821 the brig Active, arriving at Sydney with oil worth near £2OOO, reported that there were 17 whalers living ashore at the Bay of Islands. In 1827 Captain John Guard, narrowly escaping shipwreck in Cook Strait, drifted by pure chance into Tory Channel, and at Te Awaiti founded the first whaling station in the South Island, which is today the last in New Zealand. In 1839 one Johnny Jones, spent £15,000 establishing a station in Otago, where he employed 280 hands. The same year Dr. Dieffcnbach reported that there were 23 boats operating in Cook Strait, and that they had taken 466 tons of oil and 30 tons of whalebone in a single season. As most of the Cook Strait whales are humpbacks, producing 5 to 10 tons of oil, that would seem to indicate that seasonal catches were of much the same magnitude as to-day, 50 to 70 whales. In the whaling season of 1936, some 79 whales were taken, a record season’s haul. The preceding year 57 whales were taken, yielding 258 tons of oil. Season 1937 was worth 280 tons. But the modern -whalers scour only the south-western side of the strait, whereas a hundred years ago the stations at Kapiti and Porirua, as well as Te Awaiti and Port Underwood, permitted no whale to swim unseen through the Strait by daylight, and if methods were less sure, the number of boats and whalers was far greater than to-day. The Olden Way Methods have greatly changed. Of old, the whaler’s life was one of endless heart-breaking toil, and grave peril, relieved by long seasons of enforced inactivity. The crew practically lived in their open boat. Long before dawn they would be away, pulling across the sound to their eyrie on a commanding headland, whence they could scan the wind-ruffled ocean for the tell-tale spouting of a whale. Chiselled deep into rocks along the coast may be seen their names and initials carved during the tedious hours of waiting. Then, when the traditional cry of "There she blows!” sent them pounding down the hillside to the beach, there ensued a long and weary chase, straining at the oars, driving the five-oar boat lurching through the angry tide-rips, until the time came when a sudden spurt brought them alongside the whale as it came up to blow. Often and often they would get there too late; the whale would sound, leaving them breathless and exhausted, drooping over their oars, to start the chase anew. Sometimes darkness overtook them far out at sea, with the whale lost to sight, and a long pull back to shore. But, if all went well, the time would come when the harpooner, standing in the bow, found his opportunity to hurl his heavy barbed javebn into the soft, tough carcase of the whale. Followed a hectic chase, the whale towing the boat at reckless speed, perhaps far out to sea or perhaps into the perilous rock-strewn waters round The Brothers Isles, or even into Tory Channel itself, not a stone’s throw from their headquarters at Te Awaiti. That wild rush slackened only when the whale tired sufficiently to let them haul up to him. and plunge

lances deeply into his vitals. If the aim was good, well; if not, the chase began anew. But always it was a matter of many hours before the whale, weakened by loss of blood, entered its death-flurry; and often the disconsolate rowers had to cut adrift from it on account of rough weather, or because they were being carried too far from land. And even when the whale was dead, the job was not half done. For the monster had to be towed back to shore, in the teeth of wind and tide. That was the hardest toil of all, rowing and rowing, and making hardly a snail's pace with a 50 or 75-ton whale in tow. Sometimes the carcase sank, which was the most bitter thing that could happen, after the danger and the work of killing it. No doubt about it, they were hardy folk who hunted the whale of old. And these methods persisted until a quarter of a century ago. When the whale was finally brought ashore, it was flensed on the foreshore, the bladder chopped up and boiled down in great.iron cauldrons, or trypots. Those pots are rusting still on the beaches of Te Awaiti and Jackson’s Bay, and at many other points on the New Zealand coast. Modem Methods

To-day, the thing is differently done. Still, it is true, the keen-eyed children of the founders of old Te Awaiti keep the same vigil on the same lofty shore lookout. But their boats that swing at anchor in the channel are not the five-oared whalers of yesterday—sleek speedboats, capable of forty miles an hour, are the chasers of to-day; and on their bows are mounted sinister little cannon that can hurl an explosive harpoon with greater strength and accuracy than is given to any man’s arm.

Guided by wireless-telephony from the hilltop eyrie, these modern chasers race to meet the cruising whale. The chase is a matter of minutes, not of hours; sound and double and dodge as best he may, the wretched humpback cannot give the slip to these lean greyhounds of the strait. Forty miles an hour is too great a speed for a swimmer who cruises at seven, and is fully extended at 15. So, since never a whale escapes these merciless hunters, sooner or later the launch is waiting when the great creature breaks water to draw breath. At pointblank range the gunner fires; the coiled line flies through the air; the harpoon buries itself deep in the whale’s side, and a muffled report tells that it has done its work. The explosive head has blown to bits in the whale’s interior. It is improbable that it dispatches it instantly; but when the whale next comes to the surface a great gush of crimson from his blowhole indicates that he is deeply wounded. A second launch races alongside; her gunner, scorning to use the harpoon, hurls an iron lance into the beast’s side, and as it dives the helmsman fires a gelignite bomb in the lancehead by electricity. The whale comes to the surface in its death flurry. Quick work! The great beast, bigger than the launch, floats beside it on the water. At once a steel

pipe is driven into the carcase, and it is pumped up with air to prevent any possibility of its sinking. A hole is cut in the fluke of the tail, the long fins are chopped off, and when a few minutes later a little steam tender arrives on the scene, she is able to take in tow both whale and launches, and turn her bow for .shore again. At The Factory Back at Tory Channel, the whale is hauled up high and dry on a slipway, and within a couple of hours the gang of flensers has stripped off the blubber and severed the head. With block and tackle and winch, the blubber is torn off in a ten-foot wide blanket. A mechanical mincer with revolving knives sheds it into slivers at prodigious speed. The blubber is rendered down in a steam digester, under considerable pressure. The oil is run off into vats, leaving only waste matter, and is purified and graded. The first oil drawn off is water-clear, and is of the first grade, and it and the next grade, which also comes off at the first boiling before any pressure of steam is applied, are the finest types of whale oil. They are used in the making of soap and margarine, and for lubricating and burning oils. The lower grades extracted under increasingly high pressure are of deepening shades of yellow and brown, and are used for dressing leather, jute and vegetable fibre, quenching steel plates in the foundries, waterproofing, and tarsealing of road pavements. The coarsest grades are, of course, those extracted Rom the head and bones. The short time in which, by modern means, a great whale can be cut up and rendered down is astounding. When hauled up from the sea the bulk of even a small humpback, 45 feet long and weighing the same number of tons, dwarfs the little band of knife-armed flensers. Two hours later it has gone, and the digesters are reducing it; next morning, the golden oil is being drawn off the vats.

Most of this oil is for export; the quantity sent overseas in 1935 was 71,600 gallons, valued at £5OOO. At a rough estimate, a whale is worth about a hundred pounds, when prices are fair. But its killing is an expensive matter; chasers and petrol, gear and upkeep and men cost money, and the season lasts but a brief three months, in winter. There is no doubt whaling is no longer tvhat it was, when the rowers were partners in the venture, and the only fuel burnt was human energy, and the great sea-herds were more numerous than is the case to-day. Whale’s meat is no longer eaten by Europeans, yet it is free from any unpleasant flavour, and closely resembles beef. In Japan, it sells at half the price of beef, and is well esteemed. In New Zealand, however, it is regarded as fit only for dogs. Baleen or whalebone, the other product of the whaling industry, is not obtained from the humpback. Although a whalebone species, the mouth filaments lack the quality of the baleen of, for example, the right whale, and is of slight commercial value.