From Nantucket to Virginia
Did you know there is over 30 gallons of sperm oil in the head of a sperm whale? And that whaling ships would be gone for many years before returning to towns like Cape Cod or Nantucket or New Bedford with their holds full of over 75,000 pounds of oil. The whales were frequently bigger than the ships that caught them. Much of the work to get them on board was cutting them up beforehand. Once the oil was removed from the head of a dead whale, the head was removed and then the skin and blubber was removed in a spiral fashion. Sections of the blubber were brought on board then sliced like bread to form “books” of blubber. These were boiled on board in a huge vat to extract the oil. Large barrels of oil were put in the deep hold of the ship. The baleen, the spiny screen in the jaws of the whale was brought back and used for many things like corsets for women, umbrellas, and whips. Whale bones and weapons used to kill whales. Whale jaws Whaling ended in