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The Essex’s great adventure began fifteen months out of its home port. The ship, which had left Nantucket August 12, 1819, and had enjoyed rather typical success in its hunt for whales, arrived by November 20, 1820, at a point a fewminutes south ofthe equator, 119 degrees wast longitude. At eight o’clock that morning whales were sighted and ...
On November 20, 1820, the American whaling ship Essex was rammed by a sperm whale ( Physeter macrocephalus ) and sunk. The incident inspired Herman Melville’s famous novel Moby Dick. The Essex had left her home port on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States, more than a year earlier. Nantucket and the mainland Massachusetts ...
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Essex (whaleship) Essex. (whaleship) Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. On November 20, 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. About 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) from the coast ...
Dec 8, 2021 · This passage from Herman Melville’s classic 1851 novel Moby Dick encapsulates the fixation and fear whalers felt towards their quarry in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Melville’s sea yarn, a massive white whale rams the ship Pequod, killing all but one member of the crew.
- Carolyn Cox
Nov 2, 2020 · Updated February 27, 2024. After the whaleship "Essex" was sunk by a vengeful sperm whale, its crew was left on the high seas for 90 days — causing them to resort to cannibalism. Camden Public Library The Essex, the ship Moby-Dick is based on, was sunk by a vengeful whale. In 1820, a whale rammed into an American whale-hunting ship in the ...
On November 20, 1820, an enraged sperm whale rammed and sank the Nantucket whaleship Essex in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 1,300 miles from the nearest land. Twenty sailors survived the attack and quickly outfitted their three small whaleboats to make a journey to safety. They had limited food and water, and could only hope that their ...
The Essex whaling ship launched from Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 12, 1819, prepared for a two-and-a-half-year voyage. The crew of 20 headed to the west coast of South America to hunt. Delays prevented the Essex from reaching the whaling ground until November of 1820. Upon arrival, the men found that the whale population was depleted.
