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- CHAPTER 60. The Line.
With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as
for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented,
I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.
The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly
vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary
ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable
to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to
the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary
quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which
it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in
general by no means adds to the rope’s durability or strength, however
much it may give it compactness and gloss.
Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost
entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not
so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and
I will add (since there is an æsthetics in all things), is much more
handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark
fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian
to behold.
The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first
sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment
its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and
twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal
to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures
something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is
spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still
though, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely
bedded “sheaves,” or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any
hollow but the “heart,” or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of
the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in
running out, infallibly take somebody’s arm, leg, or entire body off,
the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some
harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business,
carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a
block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all
possible wrinkles and twists.
In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line
being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in
this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into
the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub,
nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a
rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in
thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which
will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a
concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the
American line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a
prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.
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