WHALE HUNTERS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 1, 1 July 1912, Page 4

WHALE HUNTERS

ANOTHER FLEET TO ARRIVE EXPLOITING THE SOUTH SEAS. The whaling eteamer Sorell, which arrived on Saturday from Whangarei, ie one of another fleet of Norwegian whalers • which, have come to fish in the South Sea#.' She belongs to the Australia. Whaling Company, which the "A" on the funnel signifies. In conversation wi£h Captain Arne Ellefsen, a representative of The Poet gathered some interesting particulars of modem whaling in the Northern and Southern Seas. The industry was being carried out with vigour and profit in the Falkland Mand and South Shetland*, and in thß waters laving the Cape of Good Hope, and it could not — in the nature of things — be long before the wateis in thia quarter of the globe were exploited. Distance and rough Weather latitudee make no difference to these hardy seamen, who have come from the - orth of Norway to the under side of the world. The two first vessels of the Australia Company's fleet are the Campbell and the Sorell. The second is already in Wellington, and has come for slipping and overhauling, after a long voyage out from Tonsberg. Both steatneis are 47 tons register, and 450 horse-power. They are just out of the builders' hands, and are, therefore, on their maiden voyages. There are three other vessels of about the same tonnage on the way out, and there in also a eteamer of 8000 tons to arrive, upon which the trying out and other work in connection with the whaling will be carried out. Her name ife the Loch Tay, formerly: of Dundee. She was a well known trader between Bombay ahd China in her day before passing under the Norwegian flag. The capital of the Australia Company is one million kroner, and the manager is M. A. Mausen, Tonsberg. WHALING IN JAPAN. Captain Ellefsen, who has been whaling in the modern Norwegian fashion since he was 15, is not yet 30. Ho has already been some four years in the Japan Sea. between Japan and Korea. He v/as not enamoured of the Japanese. They appear to a Norwegian whalar much less attractive than to the tourist at show places like. NZkkoor Nara. Their successes in the war with Russia have made them extremely arrogant ac a nation, was Captain JEEefsen'6 experience, and it was extensive and peculiar. He came right up against the rough side of life in Japan. He has chased whales off Newfoundland, too, and also off the Orkneys, Shetlande, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands — wild waters all at times. The voyage out to New Zealand was long and not without incident, and the hot weather in the Tropics was rather toying to men innured to the temperature of the Arctic Circle and thereabouts. One man died of sunstroke when, the ship was in the neighbourhood of Colombo. The route was across the Bay of Biscay, through the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, Colombo, to Batavia, where the Campbell and Sorell parted,' the latter coming to New Zealand via Torres Straits and the former by way of Fremafltle and Melbourne. HELD UP BY ITALIANS., When off Alexandria one dark night with lights burning bright, and the two steamers we're putting up ten knots ah hour, a dark, indefinite shape loomed up out of the' darkness and kept abreast of the whalers all night. The look-outs on both whalers saw the shape, and soon guessed that it was at ;man-of-waT> 'but of what nationality they oduld not tell. When dawn came a-nd it wad light enough to see them, signals were 'made by the man-of-war (which, had tfeen steaming all night with" no lights showing). Captain Ellefsen endeavoured to read them, but could not find anything in his. code. to interpret them. Then a gun on the man-of-war belched forth flame and smoke. It was then time for the whalers to stop, and the signal 'was telegraphed to the engine-room accordingly. A party of- officers -put off from the man-01-war.' They were Italians. Captain Ellefsen could speak no Italian and. the Italians could spi?ak no Norwegian, but after an inspection qf the two vessels they left, a . document indicating that the search had been satisfactory and that the whalers were what they represented themselves to be. • WHALES SIGHTED. The Sorell fell in with four whales off the Queensland coast, a few miles north of Moretori Bay. On the New Zealand' coast a herring whale was sighted north of the Great Barrier Island, and seven humpbacks were met with, south of tlfct island. The Sorell called in 'at Port Fitzroy, Great Barrier, 4 and carefully reeonnoitered the coast all the way down to Wellington. Her next port of call will be Stewart Island, and thence to Hobart and the coast of Southern Tasmania. Each of the whaling steamers carries ten hands all told, including officers ; but on . the Loch Tay, which is a floating factory in a sense, there are, ninety-two officers and men. The Loch Tay has space .for 'l7,ooo barrels of' oil, and, if the whalers ai"» fortunate to catch bo many, ten whales a day can be handled by the Loch Tay with her modern equipment.