The Whaleship Essex

 The sailing vessel Essex was a regular whaleship, like hundreds of others built in the United States during the peak of the whale-hunting era of the early 1800s.  It was 87 feet in length, measured 238 tons, and was homeported in Nantucket, one of the centers of the whaling industry.  In 1819, the ship departed on its fateful voyage (scheduled to last three years) with a crew of 21 men.  On November 20, 1820, while in the South Pacific about 2,000 miles west of Chile, the Essex a pod of sperm whales, which were highly valued for their sperm oil (used in candles, soap, and machine oil) and ambergris (used as a fixative in perfumery).  While the crew in their whaleboats was pursuing various pod members, a particularly large sperm whale rammed the Essex twice, causing it to break apart and sink.  The three whaleboats headed west.  After some days, they landed on Henderson Island (part of the Pitcairn Islands group).  It took the crew only one week to eat virtually all the birds and eggs on the island and drink most of the fresh water.  It was decided to set out for the coast of Chile, but three of the men elected to stay on Henderson Island.  Due to exposure and lack of provisions, men on the whaleboats started to die.  The first few were sewn into their clothes and buried at sea.  Soon, though, the survivors turned to cannibalism, eating their deceased companions.  In one extremely sad case, crewmembers on one whaleboat drew lots to determine which would be sacrificed to feed the others.  One whaleboat and its remaining crew were rescued 93 days after the sinking of the Essex.   Another whaleboat and its remaining crew were rescued separately two days later.  The third whaleboat and its crew were never found.  The three who remained on Henderson Island were eventually rescued, barely alive.  The chief mate and the cabin boy eventually wrote accounts of their ordeal.  The chief mate’s book served as the inspiration for the novel by Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, also known as The Whale.