Thus disabled, no one on board being able to ply at the oars, and with only a small fragment of the boat’s sail remaining, it was determined to make for Cocus Island, on the Peruvian coast, a distance of about one thousand miles, as the nearer land. Two of the survivors were seized with delirium all of them having been without a morsel of food or drink and suffering painful from thirst. The effort was again renewed in the afternoon, the weather being yet more favorable and they finally succeeded in freeing the boat from water, but with the loss of another of her crew – all on board having been up to their arms in the water during the last 48 hours. On the second morning, the weather being more favorable, all the whale craft was thrown overboard and another attempt was made to bail the boat, which resulted in the loss of one man and without accomplishing the purpose. They then continued on their course as before hoping to regain the barque, but soon found that she receded from them, and it was then determined to put about to the wind and remain, whatever the consequences might be. In this perilous condition the unfortunate boat’s crew made another attempt to bail the water from the boat, but owing to their consternation they did not succeed. Saw them cutting in the whales and apparently indifferent to the fate of their comrades. Every expedient was resorted to by making signals to attract the attention of those on board the barque, but in vain. During the night they saw a light at intervals but in the morning the barque was at about the same distance off. They then cut the line attached to the whale, and succeeded in setting some pieces of boat-sail and steered towards the barque, then about three miles distant. The crew of the captain’s boat then got on to the whale alongside and tried to bail the boat, but could not succeed. saw the other two boats take their whales alongside of the barque which was then kept off in the direction for his boat, but to his surprise and horror, when within about one mile of him they kept off on another course until sundown. Two waifs, or flags, were immediately set as a signal of distress, the other boats being in sight at a distance of about one and half miles. The crew succeeded in righting the boat, and lashed the oars to the thwarts across the boat to prevent her from overturning, she being filled with water, and the sea continually breaking over her. Hosmer had succeeded in “turning up” his whale and was towing him to the ship, from some inadvertence on the part of the 3d mate in putting about, the boat capsized, with loss of boat keg, lantern-keg, boat bucket, compass, paddles, &c. It blowing fresh at the time the boats soon separated each having made fast to a whale. Charlez, Joseph Cortez, Daniel Thompson, and Jas. Hosmer’s boat’s crew consisted of himself, Francis Hawkins, 3d mate Edward H. On the Coast of Peru, 23d June, 1849, in latitude 3 degrees N., longitude 104 W., while cruising for whales, a shoal of sperm whales appeared in sight from the Janet, and three boats lowered in pursuit. Hosmer, later master of the whaling barque Janet, of Westport, furnishing an account of privations and sufferings of a boat’s crew belonging to the Janet comprising the captain and five others, which is almost without parallel in the annals of the whale fishery. The number of victims and nature of their demise, however, differs according to each account.ĭreadful Suffering At Sea- We have received a letter from Capt. How did they manage to survive without food or water? Both accounts describe how straws were drawn to determine who would be sacrificed for the greater good of the crew. Two survivors wrote an account of their ordeal, one written by Captain Francis Hosmer and another, considerably more dramatic and gruesome, was written by one of the crew members. While chasing a whale, the master and several members of her crew were separated from the ship and left to drift in their small whaleboat for 2 weeks. Westport’s most gruesome catastrophe befell the crew of the Janet in 1849. Home → Blog → Cannibalism? A Difference of Opinion.
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