Whale Attacks Essex: Moby Dick's Real Inspiration

An enormous sperm whale, estimated at 85 feet long, rammed the whaling ship Essex twice in the open Pacific, staving in her bow planks and sinking the 238-ton vessel in a matter of minutes. The attack, 2,000 miles west of South America, left twenty crew members adrift in three small whaleboats with minimal provisions, beginning one of the most harrowing survival ordeals in maritime history and providing Herman Melville with the factual foundation for Moby-Dick. The Essex, commanded by Captain George Pollard Jr., had departed Nantucket in August 1819 on a whaling voyage expected to last two to three years. On the morning of November 20, 1820, first mate Owen Chase was supervising repairs to a damaged whaleboat when he spotted a massive bull sperm whale lying motionless on the surface. The whale suddenly charged the ship, striking the bow with its head. It circled, turned, and struck again with what Chase described as "tenfold fury and vengeance," crushing the bow timbers. The Essex began taking on water immediately and listed to port. The crew salvaged what provisions they could, including 600 pounds of hardtack, 200 gallons of water, and navigational instruments, and set out in three 20-foot whaleboats. Pollard wanted to sail for the nearest land, the Marquesas Islands, roughly 1,200 miles to the west. Chase and the crew argued against it, fearing rumored cannibals on those islands, an irony that would become grimly apparent. They chose instead to sail south and east toward South America, a route of over 3,000 miles against the prevailing winds. What followed was 95 days of starvation, dehydration, and escalating horror. Rations ran out. Men began dying. The survivors, driven by desperation, resorted to cannibalism, first eating those who had died of natural causes, then drawing lots to determine who would be killed so the others might live. Pollard's young cousin, Owen Coffin, drew the short lot and was shot by another crewman.