| The
shafts of hand whaling harpoons was made of soft iron. This
had enough tensile strength to be able to pull the boat without
breaking, but was soft enough to be able to bend fairly easily
under the strain. Bending meant that the pull on the head of the
harpoon was directed through an angle depending on how it entered
the whale, and the angled pull meant that the harpoon was less
likely to come out and so the whale be lost.
All whaling ships therefore, right up to the industrial
days had a blacksmith on board and part of his job was to
re-straighten harpoons so that they could be used again. |
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