Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Customary delay before cutting in captured sperm whales

The standard procedure involves two crew members keeping watch for an hour at a time in rotation, monitoring the deck through the night until daylight allows the cutting operation to begin. This delay ensures the crew is well-rested before undertaking the exhausting work ahead.

Shark predation risks for moored whale carcasses

However, this delay presents a critical problem in certain waters, particularly along the Line in the Pacific, where enormous numbers of sharks gather around moored whale carcasses. In these waters, a whale left moored for six hours would be reduced to little more than a skeleton by morning, making the usual overnight delay impractical.

Shark voracity and whaling spade deterrence

In other ocean regions where sharks are less abundant, their voracity can be diminished by vigorously stirring them with sharp whaling-spades. This method, though sometimes effective, occasionally seems only to stimulate them into greater activity rather than driving them away entirely.

Pequod anchor watch shark culling operations

The Pequod’s situation proved different. After Stubb set the anchor-watch following supper, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on deck and created immediate excitement among the sharks. They suspended cutting stages over the side and lowered three lanterns to cast long gleams over the turbid sea, then continuously struck at the sharks with their long whaling-spades, driving the keen steel deep into their skulls—the sharks’ seemingly only vital part.

Extreme ferocity of attacking sharks

The foamy confusion of the struggling sharks prevented the marksmen from always hitting their mark, revealing the incredible ferocity of their attack. The sharks viciously snapped at each other’s disembowelments and even bit their own bodies, bending like flexible bows until entrails seemed swallowed repeatedly by the same mouth. Even dead sharks remained dangerous, exhibiting a generic vitality in their joints and bones after individual life had departed. One shark nearly took Queequeg’s hand off when he tried to close its murderous jaw.

Whaling spade design and specifications

The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made from the finest steel, approximately the size of a man’s spread hand, and generally corresponds to the garden implement of the same name—though with perfectly flat sides and a considerably narrower upper end than lower. This weapon requires constant sharpening, like a razor, and is fitted with a stiff pole handle measuring twenty to thirty feet in length.

Queequeg’s remarks on shark creation

Queequeg reflected on the nature of sharks with characteristic philosophical resignation: “Queequeg no care what god made him shark… wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin,” expressing his view that only a cruel or mischievous deity could have created such ferocious creatures.

CHAPITRE 67. Cutting In.

This chapter describes the process of rendering a dead whale into useable blubber aboard the Pequod, depicting it as a grimly ceremonial industrial operation that transforms sailors into butchers and violates the Sabbath.

Whalemen’s Cutting-In Sabbath

The cutting-in occurs on a Saturday night, when whalemen become “ex officio professors of Sabbath breaking.” The ivory Pequod is turned into what resembles a shambles, with every sailor functioning as a butcher. The scene is likened to offering “ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods,” establishing the brutal and ritualistic nature of the work.

Rigging Cutting Tackles

The enormous cutting tackles—comprising a cluster of green-painted blocks that no single man can lift—are hoisted to the main-top and lashed firmly to the lower mast-head, deemed the strongest point above deck. A hawser-like rope winds through the block system, leading to the windlass. The huge lower block, fitted with a blubber hook weighing some one hundred pounds, is swung over the whale in preparation for extraction.

Hauling First Blubber Strip

The mates Starbuck and Stubb cut a semicircular line around an insertion point above the side-fin, then insert the hook while the crew strikes up a wild chorus and heaves at the windlass. The ship careens dramatically, trembling and nodding as the strain builds. When the snap of release comes, the ship rolls back and the first strip of blubber rises, peeling from the whale’s body like an orange’s rind being spiralized. The massive blood-dripping mass sways overhead, requiring workers to dodge its swing or risk being thrown overboard.