139:
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369:, was lifted skyward, wrenched off and the baleen cut out. The carcass was rolled over and a third strip of blubber was pulled off. The blubber was further cut into smaller pieces and fed into manholes in the deck which lead to the cookers. The carcass was brought forward where the lemmers, just like their Grytviken counterparts, took care of the meat, bone, and viscera. This allowed another whale to be brought up the slipway and onto the deck to be flensed. The meat was flensed similar to the blubber, while the bones were sliced by a steam-driven bone
358:(a giant pair of tongs invented by the Norwegian Anton Gjelstad in 1931) and pulled up unto the deck of the ship by powerful steam winches. On each side of the whale there were large chocks built into the deck so the carcass wouldn't roll in a rough sea. Two flensers, one on each side, cut longitudinal slits along the length of the body, while another man with spiked boots climbed atop the whale to make further cuts. With the use of a winch on an arch at the center of the ship two strips of blubber were pulled off (like the peeling of a
258:
whales before setting the carcass adrift for sharks and other scavengers. The blanket pieces were hoisted down into the blubber room, where men cut the pieces into smaller "horse pieces" about four feet by six inches (120 by 15 cm). These in turn were made into "bible leaves", which were put into the two (or three) try-pots to be boiled into oil. The baleen, meanwhile, was pulled from the gum, washed with sand and water, polished, and put into bundles.
318:, simply more modern versions of earlier American whaleships, could only anchor in a bay to process whales. They used virtually the same techniques as open-boat whalemen, bringing the carcass alongside the ship, cutting the blubber into long strips, which were cut into smaller pieces to be boiled in large steam cookers. In the southern summer of 1912-13 the first successful attempt was made by a
166:, in the first half of the 17th century, the processing of whales was primarily done ashore. Where the whale was flensed differed between the English and Dutch. The English brought the whale to the stern of the ship, where men in a boat cut strips of blubber from the whale's back. These were tied together and rowed ashore, where they were cut into smaller pieces to be boiled into
229:
272:
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the tooth-studded lower jaw was wrenched off, and head taken off and brought aboard; if it was a particularly large specimen, it was brought aboard in two segments. Besides the blubber and baleen, whalemen would also take the tongue of a baleen whale, as well as the flukes of both baleen and toothed
240:
American whaleships also adopted this method. The whale, whether it be a baleen or toothed whale, was usually brought to the starboard side of the ship tail-first. A cutting-stage was lowered over the carcass consisting of three heavy planks where men with long-handled cutting spades could stand to
236:
By the 1630s whaling had spread offshore and into the ice floes west of
Spitsbergen. Here whales were flensed alongside the ship, the blubber cut into small pieces and put into casks to either be boiled into oil at a station ashore, or, by late century, on the return to port. At about the same time
174:). The Dutch eschewed this system, bringing the whales into the shallows at high-tide and flensing them at low-tide. This latter method proved much less time-consuming and more effective. Both parties only cut off the blubber and the head, leaving the rest of the carcass to
353:
The carcass was brought to the stern of the factory ship, where several other carcasses could be waiting to be processed. A line was looped around the small of its tail and it was brought to the bottom of the slipway, where the small of its flukes was secured by a
305:
would pull it aside with the aid of steam winches and blocks to remove the meat and bone. Other men armed with steel hooks cut the meat into smaller pieces and fed them into meat cookers, while the bones were put into separate boilers.
373:. The carcass was once again turned over, allowing more of the meat and ribs to be taken off. The good-quality meat was frozen, while virtually everything else was dropped down through the manholes into the cookers.
200:
Shore whaling flensing methods elsewhere differed little from the
European whaling mentioned above. In California during the 19th century whales could be winched ashore either at a sandy beach or, in the case of the
283:
the whales were merely flensed at low-tide. Later mechanical winches and slipways were introduced. The whale was winched up the slipway onto a flensing plan, where men with long-handled knives shaped like
138:
209:, they were brought to the side of a stone-laid quay to be flensed. Cutting-tackles were suspended from an elevated beam, allowing the whalers to roll the carcass over in the water for flensing. On
185:. There, men with flensing knives would not only cut up the blubber into long strips with the assistance of these capstans, but also cut up the viscera and bones to make various products.
483:, had a slipway built in its bows. This technique proved too cumbersome, resulting in the stern slipway being adopted by later factory ships. Tønnessen & Johnsen (1982), p. 351.
288:
would cut off long strips of blubber with the help of winches. As more and more of the carcass was utilized flensing became more specialized. Soon the entire whale was being used.
181:
In Japan the whole carcass was utilized. During the open-boat whaling era in Japan in the late 16th to early 20th century, whales were winched ashore by large
237:
Basque whalers began trying-out oil aboard ship, but this appears to have met limited success: the method was not fully utilized until the late 18th century.
37:
188:
431:
Detailed descriptions of "cutting-in" during the
American whaling era can be found in Scammon (1874), pp. 231-38, and Bockstoce (1986), pp. 74-87.
146:
666:
643:
611:
592:
569:
550:
345:
690:
202:
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was the key step that transformed a whale carcass into a stable, transportable commodity. It was an important part of the
685:
636:
The Marine
Mammals of the North-western Coast of North America: Together with an Account of the American Whale-fishery
92:
241:"cut in" the whale. The blubber was cut in strips called "blanket pieces" in a circular fashion (like peeling an
279:
Flensing at stations in the early modern era (late nineteenth century) differed little from earlier methods. In
216:
were flensed in the shallows along a rocky beach. Men sliced the blubber from the lean with the assistance of a
395:
Brown, J.T. (1884). Goode, G.B. (ed.). "The
Whalemen, Vessels, Apparatus, and the Methods of the Fishery".
142:
Whale-Fishing. Facsimile of a
Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Thevet, in folio: Paris, 1574
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The following description is primarily based on Ash (1964), in particular the chapter entitled
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299:, after the blubber had been stripped off the carcass by a group of flensers, a gang of three
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301:
275:
A humpback whale about to be flensed at the
Cheynes Beach Whaling Station in the early 1950s
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42:
349:
A group of
Inupiaq flense a bowhead whale on the north side of Barrow, Alaska Oct. 5, 2017.
155:
562:
Storms, Ice, and Whales: The
Antarctic Adventures of a Dutch artist on a Norwegian whaler
326:. A further breakthrough occurred in the 1923–24 season when the Norwegian factory ship
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the sides of the lower lips were cut off and its upper jaw, filled with valuable
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flensing whales alongside the ship while anchored in
Discovery Inlet off the
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167:
72:
64:
271:
449:
For an account of modern bay whaling in the Antarctic see J.S. Hodgson's
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Next the lower jaw, which can be as long as twenty feet (6 m) for a
331:
280:
604:
Pesca: A History of the Pioneer Modern Whaling Company in the Antarctic
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52:
17:
359:
319:
250:
171:
97:
541:
Whales, Ice, & Men: The History of Whaling in the Western Arctic
362:), which was attended by "a crackling like a bonfire of peasticks."
344:
270:
227:
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factory ship at catching and flensing whales in the pack ice off
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that still continues in the 21st century is both industrial and
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342:
in 1925 flensing could be performed entirely on the open sea.
154:". A whale (left foreground) is being flensed. Painting by
479:, named after the Norwegian pioneer in Antarctic whaling
397:
The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States
338:. With the introduction of the stern slipway in the
622:
580:
538:
192:Flensing at the Tyee Company whaling station at
466:For an account of this voyage see Does (2003).
564:. Grand Rapids, Mich, W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co.
8:
661:. University of California Press, Berkeley.
109:English whalemen referred to the process as
492:Tønnessen & Johnsen (1982), pp. 353-55.
27:Process of harvesting blubber from whales
532:. London, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
514:Tønnessen & Johnsen (1982), p. 706.
387:
413:Hacquebord et al. (2003), pp. 129–133.
95:into oil, although it may be eaten as
7:
253:, was hacked off with an axe. For a
113:, while American whalemen called it
629:. New York: London, The Century Co.
621:Morley, F.V.; J.S. Hodgson (1926).
545:. University of Washington Press.
403:. Government Printing Office: 277.
25:
330:spent an entire season in the
67:. Processing the blubber (the
1:
659:The History of Modern Whaling
560:Does, Willem van der (2003).
453:, pp. 118-235, part two of
712:
30:For the record label, see
29:
634:Scammon, Charles (1874).
528:Ash, Christopher (1964).
170:in large copper kettles (
41:Flensing at Whalers Bay,
537:Bockstoce, John (1986).
440:Hart (2001), pp. 169-71.
625:Whaling North and South
579:Ellis, Richard (1991).
455:Whaling North and South
295:, a whaling station at
51:is the removing of the
422:Scammon (1874), p. 250
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205:station just south of
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91:the blubber is rarely
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267:Shore and bay whaling
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134:Shore and bay whaling
63:, separating it from
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691:Industrial processes
328:Sir James Clark Ross
587:. Alfred A. Knopf.
686:Whaling implements
653:Tønnessen, Johan;
602:Hart, Ian (2001).
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89:aboriginal whaling
77:history of whaling
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481:Carl Anton Larsen
65:the animal's meat
16:(Redirected from
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232:Mincing blubber
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156:Cornelis de Man
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451:Whaling South
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477:C.A. Larsen
255:sperm whale
194:Murder Cove
176:polar bears
164:Spitsbergen
152:Smeerenburg
105:Terminology
32:The Flenser
680:Categories
503:Working Up
377:References
367:blue whale
356:whale claw
314:At first,
203:Carmel Bay
116:cutting-in
85:aboriginal
57:integument
638:. Dover.
320:Norwegian
293:Grytviken
245:). For a
129:Open-boat
122:flinching
73:whale oil
55:or outer
696:Butchers
657:(1982).
332:Ross Sea
281:Finnmark
207:Monterey
196:, Alaska
183:capstans
111:flensing
93:rendered
49:Flensing
457:(1926).
340:Lancing
310:Pelagic
302:lemmers
172:trypots
158:(1639).
81:whaling
71:) into
53:blubber
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591:
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360:banana
262:Modern
251:baleen
243:orange
98:muktuk
79:. The
61:whales
18:Flense
382:Notes
218:winch
87:. In
663:ISBN
640:ISBN
608:ISBN
589:ISBN
566:ISBN
547:ISBN
371:saw
291:At
168:oil
162:In
119:or
59:of
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671:.
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