[Sca-cooks] Sperm Whales

[Volker Bach]

"Mark.S Harris" schrieb:
>
> How were whales hunted in period? I guess going after them in a longship
> type vessel isn't any more hair-raising than in a whaleboat, but not
> something I would willingly do. (actually, for more reasons than the
> just the hazard). Perhaps the whales were more common, and came in
> closer
> to shore such that you didn't need a large ship to act as a home base.

To my knowledge, whaling was mostly done inshore
in period. Whales frequently approach coasts even
today (in remoter places where they weren't killed
and eaten or turned into lighting on sight). In
the Faroes and northern Norway you could still get
at them with boats, and Native Americans on the
Pacific coast actually still hunt them that way
AFAIK. Also, whaling was not really the industry
it would become in the 1600s. I know for a fact
that whaling the Moby Dick way was done in the
mid-17th century, but I'm not sure how far back
the tradition goes.

Giano