BOMBING WHALES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3113, 17 April 1922, Page 7

BOMBING WHALES.

MODERN WHALERS’ METHODS

A century of whaling in and about, Cook Strait, New Zealand, by whalers based on To Awaite, in Tory Channel, Queen Charolettc Sound, covers almost the whole history of whaling, from the very primitive to the most up to date. A hundred years ago the old whalers of Te Awaite pursued whales in rowboats with muffled oars and hand-thrown harpoons, and the kill was made with the lance. To-day the whale-hunters clash out in very fast benzine-engined motor boats, and attack w ill. (1) a gun-fired harpoon and (2) a handthrown bomb; following up with a system of inflating tho dying whalo by means of an air pump, the compressed air from which passes through a hose and through a sharp metal nozzle (called tho air spear) thrust into tho carcase. The air-pump is driven by means of a, belt attacked to the flywheel of the engine. Jt will be seen that the technique and equipment have advanced from the primitive and simple to the scientific and complicated. And most of tins advance has been made in the lust ten years. In elaboration of system, and in percentage of successful hunts. Te Awaiti claims to lead the world. Over ten years ago the average season’s catch of a whaling party (four) in Tory Channel was four to five whales. Now the Rerano party (seven men) catches in a season 40 to 50 whales. About a dozen years ago some direct lineal descendants of the old whalers were still whaling in Cook Strait on the old lines, with muffled oars. One of tho Rerano family, in a small steamer, tested the implications of the muffled oar practice by steering the steamer toward a whale, and the great sea mammal took no notice until it was bumped. Mr Rerano came to tho conclusion that tho idea that a whale must be stalked as quietly as one stalks a deer was at least exaggerated. Ho and his brother decided to try whalehunting in motor-boats. They wore laughed at. Rut they persevered and succeeded. To-day the Rerano whaling party includes five of the descendants of the old whalers, and tho combination of their excellent seamanship and inherent whaling instinct, with modern equipment, has proved to bo productive of much whale oil. 'Fhe attack may he considered from three points:—(l) The harpoon gun, a smooth-bore weapon, breech-loading, firing a harpoon weighing 2911). and possessing an effective range of 90ft; (2) the bomb, which is not fired from a gun, but Ls hurled by hand, and which is loaded with an exploding charge of about five sticks of gelignite, to lie fired from the boat by means of electrical wires attached to the exploding charge; and (4) the air-pump although the last-mentioned is a buoying measure rather than an attacking one. The gun-fired harpoon provides the tether rope. The hand-thrown bomb is; the killer. A whaling motor-boat is manned by two —r(a) a steersman, who steers, fires the bombs when signalled to do so by the gunner, helps to coil in slack rope so as to keep a tight line on a harpooned whale, works the engine, and s in general charge of the boat; and (M a gunner who fires the harpoon-gun and hurls the bombs. This two-men complement is claimed to he the smallest whale-killing crow, numerically, in the

World. ... Suppose a simile whale is sighted. Act one is the tiring of the harpoon at its effective rmpee. Of the 250 fathoms of rope attached in the liarpoon, 120 ft IK eoilod at the loot of the gun, so as to flv through the air with the flight of the harpoon. That makes an extreme range of 120 ft. and sometimes' a gunner is tempted to try a shot at 100 ft or more. Occasionally lie succeeds, hut in practice the reliable range is considered to be not over 90ft. Tbo harpooned whale goes down and makes off, and the aim of the boat’s crow is to keep a tight line nip him. and eventually work him to a point at which the- bomb can be burled into him. But a bomb-binder has not the range of a harpoon-gun. A bomb weighing 121b cannot bo thrown with accuracy at a greater range than 101 1, and cannot bo exploded with safety to the boat, at a less range than 15ft. So the harpooned whale has to be brought up to a distance of 10ft or loss; and, after that, at least 1511 has to bo put between the monster and the boats, before the gunner can safe-

ly give to the steersman the signal to bring the wires into contact and explode the bomb. The bomb-range, 10ft, or three and athird yards, gives some idea of how near the motor boats must venture to huge animals, yet nueripples, and possessed of fho power to destroy a boat with one blow of 11 uor fluke, bo tight is tile melee (a fact, easily proved by photographs or by personal observation) that the whalers dare not use a bomb explotable on impact or oxplosiblc by time-fuse, for fear that the explosion will wreck one or more ol the boats. \\ hen the gunner has hurled the sharp iron head of a bomb well into a whale,'and the whale goes under, the electrical wires attached to the bomb rush through ins hands. Jf the direction taken by the wires shows that the whale is travelling under one ol the boats, then the firing signal cannot hi' given, bo, in certain circumstances, there may he loss ol time between the harpooning and the driving of the bomb homo, and again between the latter operation and the exploding of the bomb; but the whalers have not yet found any safe way of shortening operations by means of a gnu-bred bomb explotable by time-fuse. .Rubbing shoulders with a harpooned monster is a risk that whalers accept, hut they do not like the idea of being “hoist with their own petard.” What would the shades of the old whalers —the famous Dicky Barrett, Thoms (grandfather of one of the pre-sent-day perano gunners), or Stubbs—say of the modern whalers’ battery? What would they say if they saw one motor-boat holding to a 60-ton whale by a gun-fired harpoon, and if they saw a second motor-boat come alongside with a conp-dc-gracc bomb, and back out again with the air-hose paying out on one side of the boat and the bomb-wires on the other? “Pump air into- him to float him, and bomb him to end his-pain.” The gnu is a Norwegian invention, but the Perano party’s guns, when imported from Norway, were muzzle-loaders. They have been improved by conversion to breechaction. The harpoon fired from the IA-inch bore gun is on a 2-inch rope; the harpoon fired from the 2-inch gnu is on a 3-inch rope. The gnu is on a swivel.

The most surprising thing about the operations of these whalers fh Cook Strait is their closeness to their prey, which sometimes strike (accidentally), and are sometimes struck by the boats. Hunters .of the world’s biggest animal are frequently closer to the quarry than limiters of big game would he on land. These whalers- have never seen an example of Mr Bullen’s chief thriller —

a fight between a whale and the smaller “killer” whales'. They have seen whales and “killers” in company, never in battle.