Flaptext
A remarkable first hand account of a four year voyage aboard the famous American whaler Charles W. Morgan in which vivid descriptions of terrifying whale hunts mingle with exotic evocations of the South Pacific.
"a compelling seaman's yarn and an important source of information on the great days of American whaling in the middle of the nineteenth century" Vincent McInerney

Review
A harpooner in the whale ship Charles W. Morgan from 1849 to 1853, Nelson Cole Haley embarked on a hunt that took him from New Bedford, Massachusetts, around the world. Called a real-life version of Moby Dick, his memoir lends an authentic voice to those who were part of a high-risk business that included working on slippery whale carcasses surrounded by sharks and being towed at high speed by a harpooned whale, known as a Nantucket sleigh ride. In addition to his thrilling accounts of whale hunts, Haley also recounts the tales told by sailors waiting for the next whale sighting and anecdotes of life in the South Seas.

Review
This is the narrative of a harpooner in the whale-ship Charles W Morgan, whose four-year voyage in 1849-1853 took him from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the South Pacific and on around the world. Before the days of the whale-gun and its explosive warhead, whaling was a dangerous and far from one-sided pursuit - indeed, one of Haley's earliest experiences was the destruction of his boat by a whale attack, and even when the harpoon hit the target, the whaleboat would be towed at speed until the wounded whale was exhausted, a terrifying experience that was known to whalemen as a 'Nantucket sleigh ride'. Haley's narrative covers all the excitements and dangers of the business - like trying to work on a slippery whale carcass, while the surrounding waters seethed with sharks - but also encompasses the long hours of boredom, when sailors entertained each other with tall tales. Many are recounted, and, surprisingly, some of the least likely can be corroborated. In fact, Haley's anecdotes of the South Seas in transition form one of the great appeals of the book.
On the one hand there were still hostile islands with murderous inhabitants, while others had been so strongly influenced by Christian missionaries that pleasures of the flesh were now entirely off-limits. Whaling was, in effect, the first oil industry, a high-risk business where huge fortunes were to be made. Haley's is the authentic voice of those that chose its dangers.