The crew of the Essex – 3 months at sea

The Essex was an American whaling ship built in Massachusetts and launched in 1799. It was quite small for a whaling ship at only 88 feet long, but after many successful and very profitable voyages, it earned the name “lucky” amongst its crews.

The ship departed Nantucket on 12 August 1819 for a whaling voyage around the coast of South America on what was expected to last for around two and a half years. At this time the ship was already very old and badly needed to be re-designed, but since it had so many successful trips in the past, no one thought this would be any different.

Its captain was only 29 which at the time made him one of the youngest people ever to command such a ship, but Captain George Pollard and his first mate Owen Chase, who was only 23 were both promoted from the crew after its past successes.

Leaving with a total crew of 21 the ship seemed ready for its long voyage, and even had a spare whaling boat below deck, making the number of launch-able row boats to 5.

After traveling several thousand miles to the intended whaling grounds they searched for days without sighting a single whale. After being informed of the depletion of the whale stock in the area by another ship, they were told about a spot 2500 miles away.

Since they didn’t really have a choice they sailed for this new hunting grounds. Along the way, the ship was hit by a bad storm which damaged 2 of the rowboats beyond repair, as well as causing some damage to the ship’s hull.

On 16 November of 1820, they sighted their first whale, which actually came up directly below one of the launched row boats and smashed it to pieces. on the 20th the crew spotted an unusually large sperm whale bull acting strangely. Apparently, it would lay motionless on the surface facing the ship for a while, then dived slightly to pick up speed and headed straight for the side of the Essex.

After ramming the ship it lay motionless alongside it, as if it were stunned. Chase decided not to harpoon it as the tail was dangerously close to the ship’s rudder which it could easily destroy if it panicked.

After a short while the whale recovered and swam ahead of the ship, the following are words from first mate Owen Chase:

“I turned around and saw him about one hundred rods [500 m or 550 yards] directly ahead of us, coming down with twice his ordinary speed of around 24 knots (44 km/h), and it appeared with tenfold fury and vengeance in his aspect. The surf flew in all directions about him with the continual violent thrashing of his tail. His head about half out of the water, and in that way he came upon us, and again struck the ship.” —Owen Chase

The ship’s hull was cracked open and the whale swan off, never to be seen again. The crew was desperately trying to fill one of the launch boats with supplies while the captain ran below deck to find any navigational aids he could, while the rest of the crew were several miles away in another of the row boats hunting.

The Essex took just over 2 days to completely sink, which gave the crew time to repair and supply 3 of the smaller launch-able whaling ships they had, though these were not intended for long voyages.

At the point the Essex went down the nearest islands were the Marquesas which were slightly more than 1200 miles away. The crew had heard stories of how cannibals lived on these islands and decided that the safest place to go would be the south coast of America, though the total trip was more than double the distance.

Food and water were rationed from the beginning, and they even managed to load a few tortoises they captured from the Galapagos islands on the way to the whaling sight. Most of the food was contaminated with seawater and the crew ate this first, taking almost 2 weeks to get through it. Since the little food they had was covered in salt water this only made them thirstier and the crew started to drink their own urine after only a couple of days.

The crew eventually came to Henderson Island which they mistook for Ducie Island over 200 miles away. Here they found a freshwater stream and ate as much crab and birds as they could catch. 3 of the crew decided to stay on the island instead of risking the close to 2000-mile journey to safety, and the number of crew members to head east in their ships now numbered 17 after losing an additional member earlier on in the voyage who deserted on the Galapagos islands.

The three small whaling boats made for Easter Island on 27 December as the next resupply point for their voyage, but the small amount of food they had gathered on Henderson Island ran out after only 3 days.

Shortly after this starvation and exposure started to pick at the men one by one. The first to die was second mate Matthew Joy who died on 10 January 1820, and as the custom was, the crew sowed him in his clothes and buried him at sea. The next to die was crewman Peterson on the 18th who was again buried at sea.

On February 8, Crewman Cole died and after some discussion, the others decided to eat him. The 3 ships had at this point all become separated after a large series of swells during a storm, and the crews of 2 of the 3 ships started eating each other whenever someone dropped dead. The third ship was carrying 3 people on board when it got separated from the others and was never seen again, presumably with the ship being destroyed and the men dying at sea.

One of the 2 remaining boats decided that if they were going to survive they would have to eat, and so decided to hold a draw to decide who was going to die so the others could survive. Captain Pollard’s 17-year-old cousin was the first to draw the black spot card, with another draw taking place after to decide who was going to kill him, which turned out to be one of his friends, Charles Ramsdell. After Ramsdell shot him, the 3 remaining members of the boat tried to ration out his body, but it still wasn’t enough. A few days later another of the 3 died and the 2 remaining survivors, Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell survived by chewing on the bones of the dead and consuming every possible part.

On February 18 a British whaler called Indian spotted the crew of one of the separated ships, and on the 23rd Pollard and Ramsdell were picked up by another whaling ship, the “Dauphin” after being at sea for 93 days.

Out of the original crew of 21, there was a total of 9 survivors. The guy who abandoned the ship on the Galapagos islands (good call), the 3 who stayed on Henderson island who were all found alive by another ship and taken to Australia, and the 5 crew found across 2 of the remaining whaling boats. The story inspired the famous novel “Moby dick”, as well as receiving massive media attention.