1. The true story of Moby Dick
In the Heart of the Sea

2. Source material
This film is based on the true story of the whaling ship Essex that sailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts from
The story of the Essex inspired the famous book Moby Dick.

3. Whaling in America
Hat worn by Nootka whalers from the NW coast.
Originally, whaling in America was done by Native Americans from Alaska and the Northwest Coast for food.
Whale meat is very fatty and has a lot of calories. In the extreme cold, people need extra calories and fat for their metabolism.

4. Nootka First Peoples

5. Yankee whaling
Eventually, people realized that whaling was also beneficial for getting massive quantities of oil for lamps.
This was before the discovery of kerosene oil for lamps in the 1800s.

6. WHY???? Whales also provided lamp oil (from sperm oil)
margarine and cooking oil (from whale oil)
candles, soaps, cosmetics and perfumes (from sperm oil)
corsets and umbrellas (from whalebone)
whale-meat for human consumption.
animal feed (from meat meal)
fertilizer (from bone meal)

7. Ambergris comes out of the whale intestines and is used for perfume manufacturing. It is in their intestines, and they eject it and it hardens in the ocean. Whalers have to get it out of the intestines themselves.

9. Nantucket, Massachusetts
Nantucket became the center of the whaling industry in America.
The industry was dominated by a few “first families”.
Coffin, Swain, Barnard, Gardner, Starbuck, and Pike families were the elite of the whaling industry.

10. Whaling Whaling was a very dangerous occupation.
Firstly, they had to go further and further as the Atlantic whale population declined.
Sea voyages were dangerous because of storms, malnutrition, illness, fighting and accidental drowning.

11. Whaling
So, they sail in a large vessel, and when they see a whale, they get crews into smaller boats, which row out and try to hit a male whale with a harpoon .
The whale dragged the boat until it got tired and then they finished it off with lances.
Then they tied it up and started work.

12. Processing the whale. Yuck.
Once they caught a whale they had to get the carcass next to the ship and start stripping the body.
The crew then cut off the head because it had the most valuable products- spermaceti is the most valuable oil.
The “junk oil” is the next most valuable
and then the teeth and jaw bone.

13. More parts
“Stripped off the blubber, a thick layer of fat, with cutting spades set in 15-foot long poles. The process was very much like peeling skin from an orange. * Cut the long strips into "blanket pieces," weighing about a ton each. * After hauling the blanket pieces up on deck, divided them into smaller "horse pieces" and "Bible leaves," so-called because they resembled books.”

14. More processing…
All images from the Smithsonian’s On the Water exhibition-
Whaler’s cutting spade
The blubber was then cooked in giant pots and melted down and cooled and put in barrels.
The work was dangerous. The deck would get so slick with blood and fat that men would slip and hurt themselves or go overboard.
Men would get burnt if a wave tipped one of the pots of cooking blubber.
Head spade
Mincing knife
This is a “monkey belt” that men used to hang off the edge of the boat and strip blubber. If they slipped and fell in the water, sharks were waiting.

15. Mocha Dick
A giant 70 ft long albino sperm whale who was sighted off of “Mocha Island” off the coast of Chile. He was attacked by at least 100 ships and destroyed 20.

16. Moby Dick
The book, Moby Dick is based on the experiences that The Essex had with Mocha Dick 2,000 miles west of South America in the middle of the South Pacific.
The author, Herman Melville, had been a whaler and had written a few novels about his experiences in the South Pacific.
He worked with the son of one of the crew and his story inspired the book.

17. The Essex
After a terrible experience at sea, out of a crew of 20 men, only five returned to Nantucket.
Apparently, Herman Melville had not heard the entire story, and after he wrote the book found out the true story.
The film tells the whole story.