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A richly illustrated sketchbook that documents the techniques, equipment, and daily life of traditional whaling through detailed plates and diagrams. Sequential images and captions depict fitting out, sail handling, whaleboats, harpooning and lancing, the struggle of the chase, cutting-in and rendering blubber, shipboard trades and tools, and shore activities such as gams and recruiting. A foreword frames the material by contrasting the romantic image of sail whaling with mechanized modern whaling, while the artwork emphasizes technical accuracy, danger, and the labor and culture of the whalemen.
A fighting bull sperm would often turn and attack the boat, and only the skill of the boatsteerer kept it out of range of the snapping jaws and thrashing flukes.
Boats have been destroyed at one mouthful, and those of the crew as were unable to leap clear. Such was the rage of some whales that they returned again and again to the broken fragments until they were reduced to matchwood.