BIG DIVIDENDS

Evening Star, Issue 20687, 9 January 1931, Page 11

BIG DIVIDENDS

WHALING FOR PROFIT THIS YEAR'S CATCH VALUABLE HOW IT DEVELOPED. Whaling in the Antarctic is tho most profitable, and the most dangerous, business in the world. Down in tho frozen South tlio big factory ships, blind in tho heavy fog, run a gauntlet of death among tho icebergs, nig as islands, and the treacherous icepack. And the little chasers, no bigger than the tugs you see in port, battle with tho roughest seas in tho world as they hunt tho hundred-ton blue whales and bring them back to the mother ship (says tho ‘Observer’). Tho Antarctic is the world’s richest hunting ground. This year the Ross Sea whalers will bring back with them to an eager market oil worth £lO,000.000, taken from the carcasses of 20,000 whales. And before long you will be washing your hands with soap made from tho oil.

The modern whaling factories, tho ships on which tho whales are boiled clown for oil, leave New Zealand and Tasmania at tho beginning of tho summer, with their chasers, for tho Antarctic.

There they stay for five months, the men on the chasers, always on t tho lookout for a chanco to send their deadly harpoon, shot from a cannon into tho huge bulk of a whale, and tossed up and down in the mountainous seas so that sleeping and eating are often impossible; while the men on the mother ship work sometimes for twenty-four hours in the day. It is such heart-breaking work that only tho hardy Norwegians, for centuries hardened to all tho perils and privations of Polar seas, can stand it for long. They were tho pioneers of modern whaling, and they are the kings of the Antarctic now. It was one of them, Sveml Foyu, who made modern whaling possible. THE OLD DAYS. Whaling in the old days was a crude business. The whaler, a little sailing vessel of the kind which, as one old-time harpooner put it, “wore built by tho mile..and cut off iu lengths as you wanted ’em,” would leave her homo port and cruise round tho world for twg or three years, until she had a full cargo of oil. Tho man at tho masthead, sighting a whale, would raise tho cry. “ Thar she blo-o-ows.” Tho heavy whaleboat, manned by eight or nine oarsmen, a, steersman, and a harpooner, would hurry from tho ship. When tho boat was within a few feet of the whalu tho harpooner, planting himself firmly on his I'oct, hurled his harpoon. Tho tough steel barb, once in the whale’s back, would never come out. Then the battle began. The whale would drop several hundred feet, perhaps, with the line which was attached to the harpoon, and lay coiled in a tub at the bottom of the boat, sliding out at a terrific speed as ho dropped. Tho men in tho boat waiter!. As soon as ho showed above the surface again they rowed after him. Their aim was to row alongside him—a perilous business—to give tho harpooner a chance to deal him a death thrust with a lance. Sometimes the whale would dash off, hundreds of feet down, towing the boat along after him. Sometimes he would fight for freedom and attack tho boat. But generally, for all his bulk and strength, ho would be tired out by useless struggles to escape; tho boat would row carefully alongside, tho harpooner would thrust in his lancf; and another whale would add his oil to tho ship’s cargo, HAIiPOON GUN. Crude and perilous as it was, the old way uf whaling was very effective against the right and sperm whales. These moved slowly enough for an oar driven boat to get within harpooning distance, and when they were killed they did not sink.

But when the right whales and tiro sperm whales which had given the old whalers such, a rich harvest began to get fewer and fewer, until hunting them was not worth while, whaling languished.

Blue winces and humpbacks were still plentiful in tho Antarctic, but tbev were too fast moving to be caught by throwing harpoons from slow-moving boats. Besides, they sank when they wore dead, and the old whaling boat could not hold them above the surface. It seemed as though whaling would die out altogether Then Svcnd Foyn. himself a whaling man, invented the harpoon gun. With the harpoon • gun came fast, steam-driven chasers and compressors, which forced air into the whale’s carcass to keep it afloat until it could bo boiled down. Tile way was clear for modem whaling. There were no factory ships at first. All the refining was done at land stations at South Clcorgia, the South Shct-

lands, and Deception Island, to which the chasers brought their catches. But oil deteriorates so rapidly after a whale is killed and before it can be cut up and boiled down that the chasers could work only in the seas close to their stations.

It was not Jong before old secondhand steamers—oil tankers and oldpassenger ships of from 5,000 to 15.0U< tons—were converted into floating factories, with slipways cut in the bow or stern, through which tho whales could bo hauled aboard for cutting up and refining. And now 20,000-ton ships aro being specially built for the whaling industry. Not only aro they equipped to boil down the carcasses for oil; they have machinery to grind tho bones for bonemeal and furnaces to burn the meat to mako fertiliser. Some of them even have machinery for canning the meat, which is very much like beef and has no trace of oilmess in its taste. THE WHALE HUNT.

This is how one writer describes a modern whalo hunt:—

“On tho high bridge atop tho pilot house of tho chaser stands _tlic gunner, who is usually tho captain, and the mate. They are intent on their work, searching tho sea with keen eyes. “ A spout is seen off to one side, and the chaser turns and rolls ahead at full speed. The gunner watches the movement of tho whale os it moves lazily along, dives, and then comes up again to blow.

“Ho has learned to estimate its movements, to know about when and where a whalo will next appear on the surface. As the chaser gets closer tho gunner goes down to the tiny platform on tho bow where the big harpoon rests in tho gun. “ There aro cleats on the deck by which ho can brace himself, and ho swings tho gun with one strong arm, tho trigger beneath his fingers. ‘‘ Tho whalo sounds, and the chaser slows down and turns slowly in the direction in which the gunner thinks it will next rise. The boat stops and lies there waiting, and in a few moments the whale comes up again, a little to one side.

“ Again tho chaser turns, and this time, as tho whale rises to spout, tlio gunner gets a sight on tho broad black hack. There is a puff of smoke, a boom, and tho heavy harpoon flashes out to sink deeply and explode within tho whale. It contains a shrapnel charge, and as it bursts the prongs of the harpoon aro released so that it spreads like the stays of an umbrella and carjut pull out. “When tho harpoon hits the whalo dives and the heavy lino runs out being checked by a winch. The chaser’s engines aro put astern, but, in spite of all their power, tho little boat is pulled slowly ahead by tho magnificent strength of the great animal beneath the surface.

“Tho .strength and speed of these whales, often 90ft to 1001't long, arc incredible. They can swim 13 or 14 knots 'Their lungs are enormous. But no animal can long withstand the steady pull, and if the first shot is not soon fatal, the lino is taken in until the thrashing body rises under the bow, and the gunner calmly fires another harpoon. ALONGSIDE. “Then tho whale is hauled alongside, fastened head and tail, and inflated by means of an air tube run into tho body. “If there are no more whales in sight the little chaser, towing beside her the whale as long as herself, starts back for the factory ship. If another whale is sighted the first is loft with a flag on it, and another chase is began. Often a chaser returns with lour or five whales. “When tho whales arc brought alongside the factory tho cuds of their flukes are cut off so tho great bodies can ho hauled up the ramp in the how. “Mon whose boots are spiked and who have ropes about their waists go down tho runway to tho waterline, where tho cold sea rolls in and recedes, and put a loop around the tail Tins is hooked to a steel cable running from a winch, and tho whale is pulled up on the deck.

“ The blubber removed, tho carcass of the whale is hauled buck to another deck, under which arc the revolving boilers where the flesh and bone are cooked.

“ The meal is dropped into the boilers, and the bones are sawed into fragments by steam-driven saws. Slowly the massive frame is dismembered until everything lias been pushed into the cooking pots, and in about an hour and a-half from the time the whale is first hauled aboard it is all below, being turned into oil, which some day will bo made into soap. “ Tho largo factories can handle twelve or more whales a day.” IN THE ICE.

Modern winding has not tho dangers of the old days. And yet there are dangers enough. Often the seas wash over (lie little chasers as if they would bury them for ever. Sometimes they get caught in tho ice. Only last year a catcher was trapped between two floes, and her sides were smashed in as though they were cardboard. Occasionally the mother ship herself gets trapped, and for all her strength and size she is twisted and cracked, and and sometimes is hardly able to keep afloat.

But always the whalers come through safely. The reason is that they are manned by some of the finest seamen in the world.

Now methods are always being tried in the whaling fields. Wireless is installed on all the ships, so that not oniy can the catchers keep in constant touch with the mother ship, but the mother ship can keep her agents at homo apprised of the quantity of oil she is getting, so that they can regulate tho market. Recently two airmen were taken south on a whaling ship with their planes to fly over largo areas of sea and find big schools of whales. Hie pilots struck bad weather in tho Ross Sea and were never heard of again. ARISTOCRATS OF WHALING. The aristocrats of whaling aro tho gunners. They are tho men on whom depends tho whole success of the voyage. “Their uncanny skill in outguessing the whales,” says a former whaleman, “in knowing just about where the beasts are going to como to the surface after sounding, and in steering their catchers to the spot, ready to shoot the harpoon, is a matter 'hat seems beyond explanation. “These men simply know their work and do it—they don’t teach it. Henoe good gunners aro rare. “Hours of exasperating effort and tons of precious coal may be wasted by a man who hasn’t that ability to t.laoe his boat within shootyig range of the spot where an invisible whalo will come to the surface after sounding. “It is no wonder that the gunners are tho king-pins of tho industry. They are paid a bonus on each whale killed, and their earnings, for a season of some three months, run as high as £IO,OOO. “Recently tho Norwegian gunners formed a whaling company of their own —a concern in which only they own stock. “ All the hardihood and the swashbuckling braggadocio of the ancient Vikings seem to have been preserved in these their modern descendants. “ Often all a gunner has is that sixth sense about whale that spells the difference between success or failure in catching them. Otherwise ho may not have a thing in his head. “Many gunners are illiterate, and manv have no knowledge whatever of navigation. When they find themselves at sea, far from the mother ship, and want to tow their catches back, they simply step to the telephone on tho bridge and got their hearings from tho radio man on the factory.”