Sperm whaling

Sperm whaling is the hunting of sperm whales for a substance called spermaceti which was used in cosmetics, leatherworking, and lubricants, as well as for illumination.

The head of the sperm whale is filled with a waxy liquid called spermaceti. This liquid can be refined into spermaceti wax and sperm oil. These were much sought after by 18th, 19th and 20th century whalers. These substances found a variety of commercial applications, such as candles, soap, cosmetics, machine oil, other specialized lubricants, lamp oil, pencils, crayons, leather waterproofing, rust-proofing materials and many pharmaceutical compounds.Ambergris, a solid, waxy, flammable substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales, was also sought as a fixative in perfumery.

Historically, whaling took a heavy toll on sperm whale populations. Prior to the early 18th century, very little hunting of sperm whales took place, mostly by indigenous people of Indonesia. Legend has it that sometime in the early 18th century, supposed to be not far from 1712, Captain Christopher Hussey, while cruising for Right Whales near shore, was blown offshore by a northerly wind, where he encountered a school of sperm whales and killed one. It is not clear whether this story is apocryphal, since no Christopher Hussey would have been the proper age in 1712. However, another member of the Hussey family, possibly Bachelor (Bachelder) or Sylvanus Hussey, may have been the actual person referred to in the story. Although the story may not be true, sperm whales were indeed soon exploited by American whalemen, as Judge Paul Dudley, in his Essay upon the Natural History of Whales (1725), states that one Atkins, ten or twelve years in the trade, was among the first to catch sperm whales sometime around 1720.

Only a few sperm whales were recorded to have been caught during the first few decades (1709–1730s) of offshore whaling, as sloops concentrated on Nantucket Shoals where they would have taken Right Whales or were sent to the Davis Strait region to catch Bowhead Whales. By the early 1740s, with the advent of spermaceti candles (before 1743), American vessels appear to have begun to take sperm whales in earnest. The diary of Benjamin Bangs (1721–1769) shows that, along with the bumpkin sloop he was in, he found three other sloops with sperm whales being flensed alongside off the coast of North Carolina in late May 1743. On returning to Nantucket in the summer 1744 on a subsequent sperm whaling voyage he noted that "45 spermacetes are brought in here this day," another indication that American sperm whaling was in full swing.

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