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| Pictures of Antarctica |
Feeding blubber to the boilers - Whales and Whaling pictures 67
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The blubber that was stripped from a whale was used
for the fat it contained. To obtain this fat it needed to be boiled
to break down the tissue and fat cells. After flensing, the blubber
is cut up into smaller and smaller pieces, in the first picture a piece
is about to be passed below decks through a hole to make the whole process
more efficient. The men who do this job are called the "blubber boys".
First of all the blubber will be further sliced by rotating knives and then it will pass into the cookers directly. This kind of direct processing made the factory ship with its continual processing much efficient than the old style whaling ships with their batch processing which was also far more dependent on manipulation of the blubber by the whalers. Also seen in the first picture is a whalers "blubber hook" almost as useful as a third hand.
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