United States Merchant Marine Academy Kings Point - Midships Yearbook

“sound body and set mind-already he sees him- self as the one he now serves; singing out orders to set the sails for some far and distant sea. Already he feels the deep inner urge to command and master a whaler on an open voyage. Yes the captain sees Skip and knows his thoughts only too well. It was only those few short voyages ago that he was shanghied on board a whaler. He didn ' t like the idea when it happened, but he learned to love the sea and its ordeals after four years of the most intimate relations with it. The coastline was beginning to take on a nondescript appearance and already it was dif- ficult to locate the estuary of the Acushnet River from where they had taken their departure only a while ago. Within the next few hours, towards sunset, the coastline would fade and with dawn the Anne B. would be alone in the kingdom of the whale. The crew was made up of men, both ex- perienced and green, from New Bedford, foreign lands, and small inland towns such as the one from which Skip had come. Within this crew, the cross section of young America could be seen. There were immigrants, decendents of the original settlers, and representatives of various Indian tribes that had populated the vast North American continent long before the European white man. Every ethnic group imaginable was represented and all were of the same hardy, sincere, and dependable stock. These men were whalemen and in no other industry on earth could their likes be found. To Skip, this was all new— but as the coastline faded, he was still overcome by a strange feeling of loneliness that accompanied each fleeting glimpse of the fading coastline that he caught as he hurried about doing his duties. Fortunate- The wives of wlialemon. These were the women who stayed home waiting for the return of their husbands for many years at a time or went whahnR with them aboard the vessels they commanded. ly, he was young and had never really set down to survey his emotions. His mind was burdened with what lie thought were more important things— he had to get to know this strange kind of a boat, or rather ship that he had come to call his home. His duties, or chores as they were called back on the farm in Vermont, were easy enough. It was the things that were not of im- mediate importance to him that he was con- cerned about— the things that his success would someday be contingent upon. A cutaway view of a bark industry in the nineteenth cei nployed in the whahng " " ■■• " ■ ' " " " • " ■ " ' " " ^^ ' ^ ' ”