WHALING IN A STEAM LAUNCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8162, 25 January 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHALING IN A STEAM LAUNCH.

A CHAT WITH ITS CAPTAIN. "These are our gun-harpoons, weighing about one cwt each, and having at their heads a charge of gunpowder, which is exploded by the breaking of a glass tube filled with nitro-glycerine when the weapon hits the whale."

The speaker was the Norwegian captain of a Russian steam whaler, of only 42 tons, lying at Shanghai, and he was addressing a representative of the North China Herald on board.

" We fire the harpoons from this gun," resumed the skipper. " The gun is about Sin thick, with a bore of 3Jin. Wo use a charge of 24 grammes of powder, which is sufficient for a distance of 15 or 20 fathoms. The line is hung on a wire loop outside the gun. When we have struck a whale, we make steam after him so as to make the strain on the line as slight as possible, and when he is exhausted we can haul him in by means of a patent steam windlass. Another device we have to save the line is to use strops made of indiarubber, 2in thick. The whale being caught, we tow him ashore to our nearest station ; we cannot cut him up and carry off the blubber ourselves on account of our size."

" What sort of whale do we fish for? The right, or Greenland whale, which we expect to find in the sea of Okhotsk, Behrings Sea, and about the coast of Kamschatka; but as the winter comes on we shall come further south. Whales vary a good deal in size. I caught ono off Iceland 92 feet long. The biggest are about 90 feet in length by 67 in girth, and weighing perhaps 70 tons. A blue whale such as can be caught off Norway will yield 15 tons of refined oil.

" Our vessel is 84ft with a beam of 17ft. The bags round the deck contain coal; we burn three tons a day. Then wo have to find room for four boats and a crew of twelve men. At Aden our deck was only 4$ inches above the water-line, and during the monsoon we had to keep everything battened down, as our dechs were constantly flooded. We made the journey from Christiania to Shanghai in fifty-seven days' steaming time. Whale fishing is certainly exciting ; that relation of mine who invented a patent windlass is eighty years old, but he takes a whaling trip once a year to keep his hand in." Then the interviewer parted with he hardy Norseman, who wouldn't "sha because his hands were oily.