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Updated: June 8, 2025
Masters and harpooners receive a small sum before sailing, in place of monthly wages; and if they procure no cargo whatever, they receive nothing more for their voyage; but in the event of a successful fishing, their advantages are considerable. The crow's nest is an apparatus placed on the main-top-mast, or top-gallant-mast head, as a watch tower for the officer on the lookout.
Almost at the same moment the irons flew from the hands of the rival harpooners; but while ours was buried to the hitches in the whale's side, the other man's just ploughed up the skin on the animal's back, as it passed over him and pierced our boat close behind the harpooner's leg.
New Zealand did not lack harpooners, sailors of all nationalities, deserters or others, who sought to be hired for the season, and who followed skilfully the trade of fishermen. The busy period once over, they were paid, they were put on shore, and they waited till the whalers of the following year should come to claim their services again.
The krang is the refuse, as I have said, and the men who separate the oily part from it are called "krangers." The "kings" throw the blubber in rough out of the "flense gut" to the "krangers" on deck; from them it is passed to the harpooners, who are the skinners.
All work was instantly suspended, and active preparations made for securing a few of these frolicsome fellows. Another line with a running "bowline," or slip-noose, was also passed out to the bowsprit end, being held there by one man in readiness. Then one of the harpooners ran out along the backropes, which keep the jib-boom down, taking his stand beneath the bowsprit with the harpoon ready.
I must explain that there were two boats, with a crew of five men each, so that we were ten in all. We had with us a few provisions and a cooking apparatus, with our pea-jackets to put on while waiting after our heating exercise. The harpooners and the elder men now began to consult what was best to be done.
In spite of their well-known speed, we were several times so close in their wake that the harpooners loosed the tacks of the jibs to get a clear shot; but as they did so the nimble monsters shot ahead a length or two, leaving us just out of reach.
The crow's-nest had been got up to the main-topgallant mast-head; and in the afternoon we were ready, and eager to attack the first whale which should appear. In the evening the harpooners were invited down into the cabin, to receive their instructions for the season; and afterwards the steward served out a glass of grog to all hands, to drink "a good voyage and a full ship."
The harpooners not unfrequently fall into the whale's mouth, when it is exposed by the removal of a surface of blubber; where they might easily be drowned, but for the prompt assistance which is always at hand.
We had some boats' sails, a cooking apparatus, two harpoons, spears, and two fowling-pieces, brought by the harpooners to kill a few dovekies for our messes. Several things, with a set of lines and harpoons, had been lost in the other boat. For some time after the fatal catastrophe I have described, we stood looking out seaward, undecided what steps to take.
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