by Wesley N. Tiffney, Jr

27

A Modern Trying Out Rendering Pilot Whale Blubber in 1983

by Wesley N. Tiffney, Jr.

The business of obtaining oil from whale blubber for lighting or lubrication has a long history. Native Americans simply collected oil dripping from stranded whale carcasses lying on the beach. Then, settlers in the New World began to heat or "try out" the raw whale blubber to separate oil from the fat and meat containing it. They rendered dead drift whales or whales caught near shore in portable try works set up on the beach. As the practice of whaling became more elaborate, later-day whalers used large ocean-going ships to hunt their prey. The ships featured specially built try-works and rendering of the oil took place on shipboard. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, growing use of electricity and petroleum products made whale oil obsolete for almost all domestic and industrial purposes. Finally, recent passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act made the use of whale products illegal in this country and put an end to the American whale fishery.

Consequently, it has been some time since whale blubber was tryed out in the United States.

On November 17,1982,65 pilot whales (Globicephala melaena - also called blackfish or pothead whales) stranded and died at Wellfleet on Cape Cod. Staff members of the Kendall Whaling Museum in Sharon, Massachusetts, wanted to dissect two of these animals and attempt to try out their blubber. The staff spent a great deal of time obtaining the necessary permits from the National Marine Fisheries Service, which strictly regulates any present use of whale products. When the museum obtained the permits, its staff brought two whales to Sharon and dissected them under the direction of Dr. Bruce Gilley, a professional anatomist from Westerly, Rhode Island. The larger whale proved to be a female, and possibly the smaller was her calf. The staff saved and froze the blubber and the "melon" (an oil-filled sac on the head) until they could organize the trying out process. Nearly a year later, on November 20,1983, they were ready.

The Kendall Museum staff had built an "analog" tryworks on the museum grounds, patterned after a type used by Basque whalemen some 400 years ago. While the design was Basque, the construction materials were modern: three feet wide and four high, the furnace was

28

HISTORIC NANTUCKET

built from cement blocks and sported a stainless steel damper. The try pot and other tools came from a Chinese restaurant supply firm in Boston. The pot itself, about two feet across and 18 inches deep, was a commercial-scale wok. Tools included a skimmer fitted with a long handle, a dipper improvised from the inner part of a double boiler, a blubber fork fashioned from what appeared to be a three-tined garden pitchfork, and appropriate devices for sampling the oil. The museum provided large knives and cleavers for cutting the blubber into the proper sized pieces. Staff members and volunteers wore a colorful but random array of aprons and old clothing. A final bit of equipment, cigars labelled "factory select" (reject?), were on hand to counteract the odor of boiling oil and burning whale flesh.

The trying out crew lit a hardwood fire under their rather incongruous try works, then added fresh water to the try pot so the first pieces of blubber would not scorch against the hot metal and discolor the oil. Mr. Bob Webb, supervisor of the demonstration and Research Associate of the Kendall Museum, told assembled observers that salt water was probably used for this purpose on whaleships as fresh would be in short supply. He mentioned that few, if any whaleships were lost from try works fires. I rather wonder about this last point. A hot fire on a wooden ship with lots of oil aboard must have created a considerable fire hazard.

Meanwhile, Mr. John Sheldon, Senior Manager of the Museum, prepared the "bibles": these were chunks of blubber, cut to about six by eight inches, and crosscut at about one to two inch intervals. The pilot whale skin was so thin it made a poor binder for the blubber, but tradition dictated that the bibles be cut and crosshatched with the skin side down. On this point, as with others in the demonstration, the crew followed traditional procedures.

When the water boiled, the crew added several bibles to the try pot. The blubber fork (cum pitchfork) proved troublesome, as the slippery blubber fell off the straight prongs. However, Mr. Clint Wright, chief shipfitter of the Mystic Seaport Museum, saved the day when he produced a reproduction blubber fork he had made in his forge. This had two curved prongs and they held the bibles nicely. The blubber began to simmer.

Mr. Douglas Allen, a chemist with the Pfizer Laboratories of Groton, Connecticut, monitored temperature and sampled the oil throughout the process to determine the chemical composition of the oil at each stage in the trying out. Temperatures ran from just above the boiling point of water (212) up to 320 degrees Fahrenheit. Oil produced from the body blubber was a dark brown color and appeared to be of rather low quality. Experts present suggested that a year in the freezer had probably allowed the blubber to deteriorate somewhat, as

A Modern Trying Out

29 the flesh froze but the oil did not. Others noted that this oil was a crude product and, in the old days, would likely be refined before marketing.

The water initially added to the try pot boiled away, leaving pure oil. Crew members added more bibles and removed those previously tryed out (the "cracklings"). Up to this point, the stench of boiling oil had been powerful, but not quite as bad as I had expected (although I took pains to keep myself and my down jacket up wind). Now, the crew added the cracklings to the fire, as this was traditionally done on shipboard to conserve the limited firewood supply. The cracklings burned very well (two pieces filled the furnace chamber with flames) and lasted for quite a while. The museum staff had provided a large pile of firewood, but with the exception of a few sticks to try out the first few pieces of blubber, little was needed. However, the stench of the burning cracklings was truly awful. The smoke emitted by the try works was gray and greasy and the odor was the sickly-sweet stink of burning rotten flesh. Even non-smokers lit factory reject cigars.

At this point, I decided to go home, try out a couple of hamburgers for lunch and cauterize my olfactory nerve with a stiff shot of converted molasses. Then, providing myself with a non-reject Antony y Cleopatra, I returned to the demonstration.

That afternoon, Mr. Gare Reid, Manager of the Kendall Museum, recreated an old whaling custom: cooking doughnuts in the hot whale oil. He produced a bowl of dough concocted from an original Pennsylvania Dutch recipe, shaped the batter into spheres, placed them in the skimmer, and had another crew member lower them into the hot oil for a few moments. The doughnuts looked quite palatable, but no one was allowed to sample them as some of the stranded whales had been euthanized with drugs and the staff were not quite certain if the whales being tryed out had been so treated. They assured us the doughnuts would go on exhibit.

The crew finished trying out all the body blubber, carefully cleaned the try pot, and then tryed out the melon or case oil. The result was an oil much lighter in color than that produced from the blubber. It appeared to be of quite high quality. I have read that up until the 1950's, fishermen on Cape Cod still drove pods of pilot whales ashore with their boats and killed them on the beach, saving only the melons or cases. These were shipped to New Bedford, where one small firm, the Nye Oil Company, still produced high-quality case oil for lubricating watches and other fine machinery. I assume the company went out of business with the advent of silicone lubricants.

During the Kendall Museum trying out, the crew bailed hot oil into a large container (appropriately, an empty oil drum) for cooling. Later they put the cooled oil into plastic fuel jugs for distribution to other