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In 1820, the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was rammed and sunk by a giant sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean, forcing its 20-man crew to take to three small open boats. Their 90-day ordeal at sea led to starvation, dehydration, and cannibalism, with only eight men surviving to be rescued after being forced to draw lots to kill and eat their fellow crew members. The disaster, which inspired the climax of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, is a well-documented story of man versus nature, detailed in accounts by survivors like first mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson.
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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 = 100*37 ---> 137) from the coast of South America, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in three whaleboats with what food and water they could salvage from the wreck.
After a month at sea the crew landed on the uninhabited Henderson Island. Three men elected to stay on the island, from which they were rescued in April 1821, while the remaining seventeen set off again for the coast of South America. The men suffered severe dehydration, starvation and exposure on the open ocean, and the survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism. By the time they were rescued in February 1821, three months after the sinking of Essex, only five of the seventeen were alive.
First mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson later wrote accounts of the ordeal. The tragedy attracted international attention, and inspired Herman Melville to write his 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.
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Portland does not have a direct connection to the Essex incident itself, but as a major New England port during the height of the whaling industry, it was part of the same maritime culture and economic system. The Essex was from Nantucket, a neighboring Massachusetts island, and the disaster was a major event in the whaling community that deeply affected other ports like New Bedford and, by extension, Portland.
Now there's another true tale of the deep. Arrgh!