WHALING DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 53, 31 August 1926, Page 3

WHALING DAYS

ADVENTUROUS CAREERS

OPERATIONS IN ROSS SEA

CLOSE TO PEBPETUAL ICE.

Most people find it imperative to do something whilst they sojourn on this planet. Some consider this necessity for doing something rather irksome, whilst others —the vast majority— treat the matter quite philosophically and work out their destinies as best they can, states a correspondent of the Melbourne "Age.", And it is that aptitude for winning the best from everything that undoubtedly makes for pure success. There is no sadder spectacle than that of the man >or woman who has decided to trudge through life with uncongenial work as the main burden of earthly existence. Such people have decided so to do advised, for it seems quite apparent that our life is just what we make it—good, bad, or indifferent, and the worst of all is surely the last. Now, as congenial work is one of those tremendous factors that aid in that thorough enjoyment of life, the choosing of a career is a matter of very great importance.

In commercial life generally there is little scope for adventure, for ia our present system everything is so cut and dried, so regular, so governed by the clock. Of course, there are the engrossing adventures of collecting money or getting married, but then these two pursuits can scarcely be termed adventures in the true sense of' the word. In a great many instances thffy are economic necessities. The army and the navy claim many whose desire it is to "seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth," whilst others pin their faith to politics or theology, and spend a great part of their time talking platitudinous ponderosities and superficial sentimentalities. But yet in spite of the regularity of pursuits commercial, there does remain in a few, a very few, it is true, that element of adventure that has always had a sure appeal to the venturesome. Whaling is full of romance, danger, and blubber. In 1923 a fine Norwegian whaling expedition, led by that intrepid navigator, Captain Carl A. Larsen, sailed for the frozen south with a cosmopolitan crew to carry out operations in the Boss Sea. The story of this expedition has ben vividly recounted by ilr. A. J. Viliers in an excellently illustrated and ■written book entitled "Whaling in the Frozen South" (Hurst and Blackett, Ltd., London). Tho fleet consisted of six ships, the mother ship, a fine vessel of some 13,000 tons, which Captain Larsen had called the Sir James Clarke Boss in honour of the discoverer of the Boss Sea, and five small whale-catchers ranging in. size up to. 1000 tons.

A MIXED CREW. The author joined the expedition at Hobart with ten other Australians, and in the big messroom these'lads mingled with big, bearded, heavy-limbed sons of Vikings, anxious-faced Germans, gol-den-haired, blue-eyed Danes, quiet Hollanders, and cheery Swedes. The conversation at times must have been a medley of nationalities. When nine and a half days out from Hobart the first iceberg was sighted; after a fortnight's steaming they crossed the Arctic circle, and within three weeks they had entered the Boss Sea. How many of us realise our proximity to the places of perpetual ice? The dangers of navigation in the Arctic seas are indeed terrible. The mother ship has to be equipped with special sheathing on her bows so that she may better withstand the many impacts. The big ship has to be kept moving all the while, dodging this way and then that way, avoiding dangerous looking blocks of ice, and crashing through those which her master thinks she can break. She forges ahead through ice that can close with startling rapidity, and in its cold, strong grasp can grind a ship to scrap iron. Once through the ice pack the real business of the expedition begins— the whale-catchers are coaled and commence to hunt.

Whale hunting must be a very thrilling affair indeed. On these businesslike little steamers is erected at the bow a wooden platform on which is mounted a small gun, from the barrel of which protrudes a great barbed steel harpoon about six feet in length. _ The nose of this harpoon is tipped .with a long pointed soft iron shell, and to it is attached thirty .fathoms of rope. There is a barrel high up on the mast, and in this airy place a keen-eyed watcher scans the surrounding ocean. Immediately a whale has been sighted he indicates the direction which the blnb-bery-coated denizen of the deep has taken, and the little ship sets off in pursuit. The captain'issues orders; the vessel shakes and spurts ahead,- then she slackens speed, swings, hastens again, and finally stops. The captain now clambers along the ice-covered dock and sights the gun, and from this position he also directs the course of the ship. Twenty yards from the bow the surface of the water breaks, and a great whale's head comes into view. Slowly it turns and glides beneath again, while the long grey back and top flanks become exposed as the whale arches his body to sound again. When the small dorsal fin comes into view there is seen a spurt of flame followed by a deafening roar and crash. The leviathan has been hit and sounds instantly in a blinding' fury of foam and spray. Soon a dull thump is heard,

which siguifies the explosion of the shell deep in the whale's vitals. Eventually the whale is dragged to .the surface, and compressed air is pumped into it, and the ship slowly tows the catch back to the mother ship, maybe a hundred miles away. But if the whale be not struck in a vital spot there is indeed great danger, for blue whales lashed to fury by the pain of a wound have been known to charge madly at the puny vessel and send it a broken mass of scrap iron and matchwood reeling to the depths. STRIPPING THE BLUBBER. When the whale has been attached to the mother ship the flensing begins, i.e., it is stripped of its thick coating of blubber. Two men armed with razor-edged knives do the flensing, and in one section they can take the whole of tho corrugated blubber from tho stomach, a huge sheet 40ft long by 20ft wide. The whale being blown up by, compressed air, the blubber ia stretched tight as a drum, and when cut it opens very easily. But it is said to be a dreadful job, this flensing. The men cannot wear gloves, for they must have a sure hold" of the greasy knives, and the author declares that frequently, they are obliged to cease work and plunge their hands into the warm blood to bring life back to them. Their clothes and faces are invariably encased in ice, so that they are obliged to thaw themselves out every time they come ou deck.

When the blubber has been hauled on deck blubber cutters slice the big sheet*, into strips. Blubber varies in thickness from 12 to 20 inches, and when it' freezes it is difficult to hack with aa axe. The blubber cutters' faces become covered with blood which quickly; freezes, and enhanced by their yellow windproof suits, fur caps, ana high' leather sea boots, they make an aweinspiring picture. After going through several processes of purification, tha sweet-smelling oil is run through pipes to a large open tank, where it is tested, measured, graded, and allowed to settle* Then it is pumped into enormous 3000----barrel storage tanks. Some idea of the value of whale oil may be gathered from the fact that from nine of them £.6500 worth of oil was obtained.

In 1924, whilst on another expedition, the famous old captain died after, the vessel had left Campbell Island, but the expedition was continued, and proved most successful.

This volume is not only interesting and instructive; it is a vivid portrayal of the life of those courageous men who fearlessly brave the terrors of the Antarctic for what we would consider but slight reward in the monetary, sense at least. So as a career whaling has plenty of adventure, but those on the threshold of life may consider that there are quite as many thrills to be obtained from stock broking or horse racing with much less personal risk.