Wreck of the whale ship Two Brothers, Photo: Greg McFall/NOAA
The wreck of the whale ship Two Brothers, which sank 188 years ago on French Frigate Shoals, 600 miles northwest of Honolulu, was recently located by divers. The captain of the whale ship was George Pollard Jr., whose previous ship, the Essex, was sunk by a rogue sperm whale in the Pacific in 1820. The survivors, in open boats, attempted in vain to reach the coast of South America. Before the two remaining boats were picked up by passing ships, the eight survivors suffered starvation, death, madness and finally cannibalism. The Chief Mate on the Essex, Owen Chase, would later write, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex, which influenced Herman Melville in writing his masterpiece Moby Dick.
No ‘Moby-Dick’: A Real Captain, Twice Doomed
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