WHELING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 41, 3 October 1911, Page 8

WHELING.

THE OLD WAY AND THE NEW. 1 1 A WHALE-CHASE IN COOK ST IN' IT. >'“LsHelton Times.”) I remember. many years ago, boarding a Now Bedford whaler lying at

anchor in the Bay of Islands. She was one of the very last of.the onetime big fleet of American whaling craft which periodically visited the historic bay, patting in for water and “fresh tack,” and for the purpose of shipping their sperm oil to “Noo Yark,” via. Auckland. A crew of Capo de Verde Islanders, half-Portu-guese, half-negro, and indescribably raffish-looking, took mo on board with the skipper, who had been ashore at Russell arranging for the shipment lof his catch; they sent their long, light carvel whaling-boat skipping ovj cr t!,ie little waves like a thing of live, j with the right-back long stroke that j only a whaleman really knows how to puli. The vessel was a small barque called the Gayhead, commanded )>y a white-headed veteran of many a light with the huge sperm-whale. She was, I suppose, not. more than three hundred tons, her rigging and gear showed signs of hard, hard wear, and an ancient and fish-1 iko smell permeated her whole fabric . Yet everything was wondrous clean; no man-of-war can exceed the cleanliness of a really well-disciplined American whaler.'they have divers ways of disciplining the crews. A Yankee mate of my acquaintance used to say that the host way with a new crew was to knock every man-jack of them stiff with a knuckle-duster or a hclaying-pin and explain their duties to them when they came to. It sort of quickened their intelligence, he explained. Anyhow, the Gayhead was kept like a yacht when tire oily task of cuttingout—“dirty work for clean money”— was at an end. Those dusky, earringed, piratical-looking Capo do Verde. Islanders had to earn their money, sure. Chockful of interest, this old Yankee whaling barque. All the old-fash-ioned whale-gear was there; the harpoons and lances carefully oiled and carefully stowed; every weapon sharp as a razor-blade and ready for use

again as soon as the Gayhead “hove up” anchor again. A big crew for such a small vessel; thirty-five to forty; enough to man five boats and leave sufficient hands to tend the ship. Old-fashioned ideas everywhere. To mention one detail. In the cabin, aft, there was an antique “dripstone,” in place of a filter; a porous stone with a hollowed out, basin-like centre'this was placed in a large vessel of water, and the fluid, by the time it had percolated to the centre was cool and drinkable—winch is more than whale-ship water always is. All of the olden days that dripstone, and the rest of the poor old Gayhead to match.

I mention that whaler from famous New Bedford because she represents a now almost vanished typo of craft. She is the very last of the ocean-go-ing whale-craft from New Bedford and Salem and Martini’s Vineyard, and other one-time celebrated Ameri-

can winding ports, that frequented Now Zealand waters in scores long ago. Stray survivors of the old fleets, like the Gayhead, visited the Bay of Islands and Auckland up to within the past eighteen years or so. They have all gone now—at anyrato from our shores. San Francisco

still has two or three whaling barques cruising the Pacific . The last two I saw in Auckland waters were the Alaska and the Charles W. Morgan, both barques. The Charles W. Morgan was still at last news cruising somewhere in the South Pacific; she and the whaling barque Andrew Hicks, from San Francisco, were heard of from Norfolk Island some time age The Morgan, as she lay off the Railway Wharf, Auckland, a good many years ago, looked surely the most antiquated-looking sea-wandorer afloat. She was of indescribably ancient appearance, square-sterned, tum-ble-in-sided, “built-by-thc-mile-and-cut-off-as-wanted” old wave-puncher, with her standing rigging all of hemp. But she was, and probably is still, a staunch old craft, in spite of her sixty; years afloat; her timbers and planking, soaked through and through with the preservative oil of n. thousand whales, should ho good for a century of sea-battering. So there she is still somewhere, perhaps cruising in the warm bine seas around the Friendly Islands, or Samoa, or the Gilberts, or eastwards where the sharp, thin peaks of the high Soeietys or the Marquesas cut the sky-line. They are far out, far out of the world, those men whoso business is the catching of the whale; they are almost part of the sea, so long have they lived upon it, so habituated to the ways of the great deep and the great creatures of the deem.

NEW SHIPS AND NEW METHODS

Well, that is the old style. Things arc clone differently now. A whaling revival is upon us, hut it seems that this time the thrifty and canny Norwegians arc going to reap that rich harvest of the sea. The Norwegian Whaling Company, of which we have heard a good deal lately, is about to start operations with a fleet of steamers, fitted up with all the latest scientific! appliances for the catching and killing and handling of the sperm and the “right” whale-—the sperm for its oil and the “right” whale for its hone, which has become very valuable again. In Wellington i have heard some, details lately of the methods which Captain Haste’s Company—which has" a big capital at. its back—intend to adopt. There will he a large steamer of about Jive thousand tons, which will treat the blubber and j other marketable portions of the whale 'and convey the product to the mar--1 ket. She will not do actual whaling,

but will bo accompanied by two small but powerful steamers lihe the Hanauui, which a Now Zealand syndicate recently brought out to do whaling at Whangamumu and the Camp-

bell Islands. One of these will do jibe killing—she will have a poworlnl bond) gun mounted in her bows—and the other will tow the catches to the big steamer. Nothing ’marketable

will be wasted, but the whale-bone is what, is chiefly sought for. The bone of the “right” whale is to-day worth something like £2OOO per ton. The average value of a “right” whale is, 1 am told by the Tory Channel whalers, about £3OO, but some go as high as £SOO. Whales have become very plentiful again around onr coasts. A little vessel bailing out of Wellington recently passed an immense school of the great mammals of the deep between hero and the Chatham Islands. Prom Cook Strait and Foveaux Strait particularly come reports of “Whale-oh!” and lots of them, and many fine “right” whales amongst them. The southern waters have been free from whale-ships for more \than twenty years; hence the increase. So there’s evidently a big tiling in store for this Norwegian Company.

THE TORY CHANNEL WHALERS

“There she blows!” is a cry often raised these days on the shores of Cook Strait. Just across the way from Wellington, at the entrance to Tory Channel, which admits the transStrait steamers to calm and lake-like Queen Charlotte Sound, the whalemen Vare on the look-cut from dawn to dark,i i eager for a sight of-whale. There, on the shore of Arapawa Island; As tiie little old whaling-station of To Awmiti—“ole Tarwhite” the whale-chasers call it. It is the most interesting shore-whaling station in those seas, for it has boon established for pretty well eighty years, and lias been, in active whale-catching work practically the whole of that time. The ■Jacksons, the Nortons, the Keenans, and . others of Te • Aiva.iti, are a fine hardy stock, sons and grandsons of the daring pioneers w r lio thought nothing of crossing Cook Strait in a gala of wind in their open whale-boats. 'They have adopted up-to-date ideas in their whaling, though they have not advanced quite so far as the Whangamumu men, who entangle whales in nets. They use bombs as well as harpoons, and one of the rival parties of whalers, that headed by Mr, ,J. Perano, whose station is near the. entrance to Tory Channel, will shortly have a new gun, with a threeinch, bore, which will kill whales from a distance of forty feet. They have clone pretty well this season from what J hear, these ■ Tory Channel whalers.. Whales sometimes come right up into Queen Charlotte Sound. Winding is . only done during the winter, for it. is then the, big creatures are on their .migration northwards to their breeding-grounds in. thq warm waters of the tropics,. A -recent fortnight’s take-this winter by the Perano and Keenan parties totalledsix whales. Sometimes the Tory. Channel wduilers chase and kill “right” and humpback, v.hales right out in mid-strait. The killing is done,from the vrhaleboatif, as of yore, ,the long, doubleendejl boats, manned by six, or sometimes, seven, men. But oil launches are now' used to tow the catches to the trying-out stations, a vast improvement on tiro old back-breaking towing, tugging at the weary oar for hour after hour.

It, is great sport, this whale-killing, lake an incident of last season. A whaleboat manned by the Jacksons and Nortons,, of To Awaiti, fastened to a big “right” wlnde at the entrance to Tory Channel. Immediately it had been harpooned it made out to sea and towed that boat right across Cook Strait. It was an exciting run. The crow' at last succeeded in lancing and killing the sixty-foot monster four miles from Wellington Heads. It was, worth about £6OO. A few of these each season made things merry in “010 Tarwhite.” And just the other day there was an equally exciting but less lucky encounter out in the Strait, a few miles from our aide of the water. The Perano and Keenan parties gave chase to three fig hump-backs. They got quite close, but could not get a chance to “make fast.” The Jacksons and Nortons did not come out; they reserve all their energies for the more valuable “right” whales. Keenan plumped::a shot from his boat-gun right into the body of one wdialo, but did not kill it. He was once right over the tail of another of the whales. It was a huge temptation to lire, but he held bis hand. Wisely so, too, for that “whaielish” would probably have left- very little of tho boat had ho seen it just then. It might have been a repetition of the incident in a certain old soa-chantcy that we used to sing long ago on tho North Auckland coast:— And when we reached that whale, bravo boys, Ho lashed out with bis tail, And wo lost a boat and seven good men, And wo never caught that whale, bravo boys, And we never caught that wdialo. Tho two crews had to give up tho chase in disgust, for just .when they were ready to kill, tho three whales made off, streaking like locomotives —or, rather, faster than any locomotives wo know up Wellington way—up througli the Strait, northward, ho! And back to tho Sound-mouth went tho whale-chasers, hoping for better luck next time: For wo didn’t catch that wdialo, bravo boys, Wo didn’t catch that wdialo!