"Bailing
in the case " of a sperm whale Drawing by H. W. Elliott from
a French lithograph designed by B. Russell.
The first whalers must have hardly believed
their luck when they at first discovered beached sperm whales and
later on caught sperm whales at sea. The spermaceti obtained from
sperm whales required no processing from the blubber as from other
whales and it was present in such quantities that the whalers
could stand knee deep or more in it and bail it out with buckets.
The part of the head that contained the best oil was called the
"case" and the process of getting the oil out as
"bailing the case".
This was initially done outboard as in this
illustration by a man with a bucket on the end of a rope, later on
the sperm whale's head was brought on board intact and the baling
happened onboard which was safer for the men involved and also
meant less loss of the oil.
Image courtesy NOAA
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