essex (whaleship)

Cartoons and facts combine to explain what it was like to be a cabin boy on a whaling ship in 1819, discussing the realities of life aboard ship, the catching and processing of the whale, being shipwrecked, and coming home again.

Tells the story of the "Essex," a whaleship that set sail from Nantucket in 1819 on a routine voyage, and how it was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in the South Pacific, which sent the twenty-man crew adrift in three tiny boats.

Recounts the 1820 sinking of the whaleship "Essex" by an enraged sperm whale and how the crew of young men survived against impossible odds.