This is the true story of the Essex, a whaler out of Nantucket, and its crew of 21, which set sail in August 1819. By this time, the sperm whale population of the adjacent Atlantic had been pretty much wiped out so, for the rich pickings demanded by the ship owners, a long voyage to the Pacific via Cape Horn is needed.
There are mishaps along the way but nothing they can’t cope with, and by the spring of 1820 they are hunting off the coast of Chile. But there is word of better catches north and west, beyond the Galapagos Islands. They reach their destination in the autumn and soon commence work – routinely deploying three whaleboats each manned by six men, leaving three to mind the Essex.
On 20 November a feisty whale bites a chunk out of one whaleboat, forcing it back to the Essex. Back on board, they just have time to fix the damaged boat before they sight a huge whale heading straight for them. Unbelievably, it rams the Essex and water pours in. The men take to the mended whaleboat, and the other two boats abandon their slaughter and race back to the mother ship to join in frantic efforts to salvage food, water, navigational equipment, canvas wood and nails before the ship sinks below the water.
This leaves the men in three small boats thousands of miles from land at the mercy of unhelpful winds and currents which push them south and west further into the vast ocean. The privations they suffer and how they fare is related in grim detail. Some survive to tell the tale, and it is these first-hand accounts that Philbrick picks through to create a gripping narrative interspersed with personal details of the crew and contextual background on Nantucket and the whaling industry.
It is an approach that works well, ensuring the narrative does not become too wearing and the history is delivered in small chunks, providing the reader some respite while the men linger on, day by long day.
It was the sinking
of the Essex that inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick, but here there
is no thought of revenge for Captain Pollard, just a question of survival for
himself and as many of his crew as possible.
