MOBY DICK AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 16, 20 January 1933, Page 14

MOBY DICK AGAIN

WHALE INDUSTEY STIES

A BUSY SEASON

The purchase of Unilever of practically the whole whale oil output of the 1932-33 season marks the recovery of the whaling industry. For, like the farmer and the manufacturer, the Antarctic whale hunter has in recent years rationalised and speeded up his methods to such an extent that he flooded his market, says the London "Daily Telegraph." The modern Captain Ahab has become a mass producer, and the Pcquod has become a factory. Moby Dick is huntjed, not alone and in equal combat, but in scores and with explosives. So great was Ahab's over-zeal in 1930----32 that' last season he was compelled to stay at home and give the world a chance to use up the surplus he had created. His wise inaction is now rewarded, and the prospective purchase by Unilever of his catch, which he is voluntarily limiting to about 300,000 tons of oil; has enabled him to resume operations during the present season from October to May. , The whale hunter is almost invariably Norwegian. It is true that Unilever and other British, companies own Antarctic whaling expeditions, but their crews! aro Norwegian almost without exception. CONVERTED LINERS. The blow which the whaling industry dealt itself came from the devastating success of the floating factory, which; in turn, was the necessary product of pelagic whaling—that is, whaling without a licence beyond the territorial limits subject to Government control. The floating factory replaces the fast-vanishing land bases. She is an oil-burning steamship—often an old liner converted. To look at she is a forest of derricks, each capable of lifting 50 tons weight, and her two funnels "are sot ono each side of the vessel, leaving a clear passage between them. This enables the dead whale 3to •be hauled up over a stern slip-way and laid on the af terdeck for cutting-up. operations. • She carries a crew of about 250 seamen and workers, and provides them, according to their different categories, with, separate mess-rooms, sleeping accommodation, and bathrooms. Sho is cosily heated with steam radiators, and has her own fresh-water condensing plant. ■ I

The floating factory is the Jnother ship of a little fleet of six or seven catching steamers, with which she keeps in constant touch by wireless. While sho cruises about outside Gov-ernment-controlled waters, the catching vessels set off after their quarry. They tow the carcasses back to the floating factory, which replenishes the catching boats' fuel tanks, and then hoists the whales on board and proceeds to extract the oil. : WONDERFULLY STURDY. The catching steamers are marvellously sturdy and agilo little craft. They have cruiser sterns and speeds of over 12} knots. They can. plod through the wildest seas, battle with ice, and turn through the entire 360 degrees of tho circle in 77 seconds. They carry guns capable of firing 1201b explosive harpoons. Later, a transport \2omes from England or Norway, as the caso may be, and visits the floating factory. It replenishes her fuel supplies and'relieves her of her accumulated whal oiL These operations are carried out even in the roughest weather, thanks to the discovery that wh^ile carcasses act as excellent fenders' between two bumping ships.

In tho hey-day of land bases the by-: products of the whale came in for aW tention. They formed food for cattle; and poultry, fertilisers, and bone meal. But, from tho point of view of the floating factory, these by-products do not repay the trouble and cost of the special equipment they requiro, arid most of the expeditions content them--selves with, the oil alone.

The great whale fishing bases used tO; be the South Orkneys, South Georgia,'! and the South Shetlands. As these fall: within the jurisdiction ' of the Falkland, Government's taxing officers, 'pelagic whaling is now general. This year there are no fewer than nineteen floating fac-. Tories of several nationalities in the Antarctic, some of which are stationed, as far east as longitude 94: —some hundreds of miles west of Greenland. : ;

Whale hunters as a body, appalled at their own. dangerous efficiency, have agreed tb limit their annual catches ona quota system. This banishes the twin fears that the industry might collapse, either through extofniinating the! whale or through heaping up unmanage-: able surpluses. ■