The company was formed by the Westerberg and Birss families who were both Albany salmon fishermen, who saw the potential for whaling in the area. Fred Edmunds, who had whaling experience at Point Cloates and Syd Reilly an accountant from Perth were also part of the team at the very beginning.

Preparations at the site continued, working long hours on the ground works, drilling and blasting rock from hills behind and cutting and carting Karri logs from Torbay, Albany Western Australia.

Fred Edmunds traveled to the Goldfields, Western Australia and located two Lancashire boilers, winches and cables and other fittings. He also traveled to Collie to inspect a war-time wheat distillery which was never used; this included many yards of steam piping and two steel tanks to store whale oil. They were dismantled and transported to the developing station.

The site of the Cheynes Beach Whaling Station was in a very remote part of Albany, situated 22km from the city centre, at the time there were no resources like electricity or scheme water. The company purchased and installed two large diesel powered generators from the Goldfields, Western Australia. Water was obtained from a large soak situated behind the station.

Charlie Westerberg endured a journey to Norway where he obtained a second-hand whalechaser the Toern and all whaling stores that were required for whaling also sailors to crew the whalechaser under skipper Johannes Andreson. The whalechaser was renamed to the Cheynes.

The services of Mr. Chris Bolleröid, an experienced Norwegian chemist, were obtained and he was able to guide the Company through the production of whale oil and also the factory layout.

In May 1952 the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company commenced their first year of whaling. Humpback whales were the only species to be taken in the first three years of the whaling station’s 26 year history and from 1955 the company took both Sperm and Humpback Whales. The International Whaling Commission put a ban on all Humpback Whaling in Australian waters in 1963. This was due to the rapid decline in the Humpback population. A total International ban was put on Humpback whaling in 1982.

Sperm whales were highly sought after as they had very high quality oil. Approximately 14,600 Sperm Whales were taken over the 26 year period. For each Sperm Whale weighing 40 tons, approximately 7 tons of oil could be extracted. The main diet for a Sperm Whale is giant squid. These giant squid can be found in the cold deep waters of the continental shelf.

The Whale chasers were docked at the Town Jetty in Albany. The whale chasers headed straight for the continental shelf from the Town Jetty at the very early hours of the morning, as soon as they hit the continental shelf they then traveled east, where the whales were heading. Upon return, the Whale chasers buoyed the whales at the Dolphin Buoy just outside of Flat Rock in front of the Whaling Station. It was too shallow in front of the flensing deck for the Whale chasers, so they used a tow boat to ferry the whales from Flat Rock up to the Flensing Deck, where men were ready to winch the whales up onto the deck ready to flense, which is stripping the whale of its blubber. The Whale chasers returned to the jetty and prepared for the next mornings hunt.

The Cheynes Beach Whaling Company attained a Spotter Plane, a Cessna 337 aircraft to assist the Whale chasers in hunting Sperm Whales. The plane aided in guiding the Whale chaser to the Sperm whales when they became waterlogged from being harpooned, a radio beacon and marker flag were attached to the whales to identify them and they were set adrift.

Increase in economic pressure was the main reason for the closure of the company. The price of fuel oil to power the Whale chasers increased dramatically. Each ship used one ton of fuel per hour, this also impacted on the viability of the station, which operated on oil-fired steam also the never ending increase of wages - at the time of closure there were 102 people on the pay role. The Company had three whale chasers operating in 1978, the Cheynes II, Cheynes III and Cheynes IV. They were all in need of replacement at a cost of $6 million dollars each.

When the directors took all of these factors into consideration, they could not see any future or profit for the company; therefore the decision was made to close the station on the 21^st November 1978.

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