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Owen Chase (October 7, 1797 – March 7, 1869) was first mate of the whaler Essex, which sank in the Pacific Ocean on November 20, 1820, after being rammed by a sperm whale. Soon after his return to Nantucket, Chase wrote an account of the shipwreck and the attempts of the crew to reach land in small boats.
Mar 1, 2013 · Owen Chase, the 23-year-old first mate, had stayed aboard the Essex to make repairs while Pollard went whaling. It was Chase who spotted a very big whale—85 feet in length, he...
Sep 12, 2023 · Owen Chase, later in life, via Nantucket Historical Society The ships sailed together and traveled about 1,000 miles, subsisting on about a half pint of water and 500 calories a day per man. On December 20th, they made landfall on an uninhabited island, which they believed to be Ducie Island.
Dec 28, 2015 · Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell were discovered gnawing on the bones of their shipmates in one boat. Owen Chase, Lawrence and Nickerson also survived to tell the tale.
As first mate of Essex, 21-year-old Owen Chase left Nantucket on August 12, 1819 on a two-and-a-half-year whaling voyage. On the morning of November 20, 1820, a sperm whale (alleged to be around 85 feet, 26 m), twice rammed Essex, sinking her 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) west of South America.
However, First Mate Owen Chase—possibly worried that the men, believing the knockdown was a bad omen, might desert—convinced him to continue. Since departing Nantucket, the crew had been searching for sperm whales.
The adventure, which is one of the world’s great triumphs of survival, has been recorded in an account of stunning vividness, First Mate Owen Chase’s Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-ship Essex, of Nantuchet.
