Removing a blubber blanket from a whale
Cuts would be made at strategic points and hole
cut for the insertion of "toggles" these are large
pieces of wood, maybe two feet long attached via their middle to a
line and an overhead derrick (crane). When the cuts had been made
and the toggle attached, the flenser would signal to the winch
operator to haul away the sheet of blubber. In a fraction of the
time that it would have taken by previous outboard flensing
methods, great "blankets" of blubber could be neatly
removed from a whale for processing.
In the first picture a wire rope can be seen
hauling to the right of the picture and pulling off the blubber
blanket as the flensers cut it free from the remaining connective
tissue. The second picture shows a huge "blubber
blanket" removed from a large blue whale with a man for size comparison.
This had been taken after the outboard flensing of a whale, so
allowing the whale to be turned over as the blanket was cut away.
During inboard flensing the blanket would be cut off in two or
more pieces as it was more difficult to turn the whale on the deck
than in the water.
Such blubber blankets weighed many tonnes and it
was not unknown for the toggle to give way and the whole thing to
fall onto the deck - and unfortunate crewman who wasn't constantly
watching out around him for such dangers.
There were two main reasons that
the Antarctic was considered the prime whaling location, the first
was that whales would gather there in great abundance due to the
amount of food there that grew as a result of great algal blooms
during the summer months. The second was that as a result of all
this feeding and processing of food, whales in Antarctica laid
down great amounts of blubber, in Antarctica, they were at their
peak and the fattest they would grow. Whales that were
hunted in other parts of the world at other times of the year,
even those from the same populations, would yield far lower
amounts of fat as the whales had already spent some considerable
time burning up their considerable resources. Many whales in fact
would not feed properly again for several months after leaving Antarctica,
months during which they lived off their reserves which would grow
thinner. Only in Antarctica therefore, was the larder fully stocked.
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