John Manson
Job Description
Maintenance Fitter, Boiler Attendant
Period
1970
In 1970 John went to Albany and got a job with the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company as a fitter working on a refit of catcher Cheynes III.
The whaling season began at the end of March/ early April and went through to end of November. During the off-season the wind blows from the east making too many whitecaps for spotting whales. The whaling migration is at its lowest numbers at this time of the year also. During this time the catchers are refitted and every second year they go to the State dockyard at Fremantle for dry-docking and major refit.
Sperm whales were the only kind of whales hunted in the 1970s at Albany. They averaged about 48 ft (and 48tons) long. Any whales under 35ft were banned from hunting for conservation reasons by the International Whaling Commission whose inspectors checked all whales – any undersize whales shot by accident (called kackers), the crew, the station staff and company were not paid for these.
Most sperm whales travel in pods of five or so but sometimes in singles, pairs or larger pods (10-12), especially cows with calves – most whales were spotted a mile or so from the ship by lookout in bucket – furthest away spotted about five miles, a breach, (playful whale leaping out of the water). The fleet caught about 700 – 1000 whales per year. Some days there would be no whales seen, other days up to 23 (max) would be caught (this was the most caught in one day).
Catching took place on the edge of the continental shelf. Catchers would steam out to the edge of the shelf 15 miles plus offshore by daylight and then line out and steam eastwards for anything up to eighty miles from Albany. The spotter plane would be out over shelf by daylight also and radio position of whales to catchers. When whales were spotted the skipper was called to the bridge and duty mate took telegraph and wheel, deckhands loaded gun and skipper went down to gun deck when approaching whales. The skipper quietly crept up close to whales and at about 30-40 metres the gunner (skipper) fired. When the gun went off the whole ship shook and all off duty crew would run out on deck. Sometimes it would be necessary to fire a killer harpoon or two to kill them.
The second or chief engineer would man the foredeck steam winch to which the forerunner was attached. The winch wound the forerunner (rope attached to the harpoon) in and brought the whale alongside. A flag or radio beacon was stuck in the whale and a hollow spear attached to a compressed air hose stuck in it and the whale was pumped up so it would float. Notches were cut in the tail flukes to show which catcher had shot it and triangular hole cut in flukes for towing tail strop. The catcher moved off to catch more whales – late afternoon they would return to pick up their whales. A steel wire rope strop was the fitted through hole in tail and passed through fairlead to tow the whale. A catcher might tow anything up to 10 – 12 whales back to the station where they were tied to a buoy in water nearby. A small tow boat later took them three at a time to be hauled up the ramp to the flensing deck by steam winch.
CREWS
Each ship had a crew of 17
Captain/Gunner
Mate
2nd Mate/Radio & Sonar Operator
3rd Mate
Chief Engineer
2nd Engineer
3rd Engineer
Donkeyman
2 Firemen
7 Deckhands
John Manson