Page 9 - Willem Barentsz

Which whale species were involved?

The hunt in the Southern Ocean involved the following animal species:

. The blue whale

. the fin whale (the most common species)
. the humpback whale

. the Seiwhale and

. the sperm whale

The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived on earth. It usually occurs in pairs. One blue
whale is a B.W.U. (Blue Whale Unit). As far as I remember, the largest one we ever had on deck was
97 feet. In the book "Whaling" by Feltmann and Vervoort, the weight of 127,000 kg is given for a 90-
footer. In the 1959-1960 season we caught 54. An undersized specimen is smaller than 57 feet.

The "Fin whale" is the second species in size. It is the species that is most common. In better times
they lived in groups of hundreds of specimens. Their weight was about a ton per foot. Two fin whales
together are 1 B.W.U. We caught 1904 in the 1959-1960 season.
The "Humpback Whale" occurs in pairs in certain areas, usually in groups. Per season, the catch was
only open for a few days and later even completely prohibited. It is a species that differs greatly from
the much more graceful fin whales. Two and a half "Humpbacks" together is 1 B.W.U.

The "Sei whale" is a smaller fin whale category, which was initially not looked after. Nowadays this
seems to be one of the most important. We only caught two in the 1959-1960 season. Five of them
together form 1 B.W.U.

Before the start of the bearded whale season, sperm whales were sometimes hunted. We also did
this during the season, but only after consultation with the factory ship, because the oil types are not
miscible. Sperm whale oil is not edible. A 50-foot boy with his gigantic head is worth it. During one of
our trips, a sperm whale once made two victims. When the lower jaw was pulled open on deck,
which was done on the winch with the help of a harp fastener, it came loose, causing two men to get
trapped between the lower and upper jaw. One did not survive, and the other was seriously injured.
In the 1959-1960 season we caught 43. We didn't have a pre-season then, we usually caught more.

In the above-mentioned season, we made the following production:

. whale oil 23,399 tons,
. spermoil 334 ton,

. vitamine olie 11 ton,

. whale meal 5022 tons,

. whale meat 1726 tonnes,

. Baleine 63 ton.
We also took some sperm whale teeth with us. To show the decline, we produced only 12,804 tons of
whale oil in the 1961-1962 season. It is now time to tell you what it was really like on the voyage.