5fish
Captain
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2007
- Location
- Central Florida
Based on In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.
Did anyone see the movie based off this book over Christmas...
Based on In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.
I spent two days dragging my poor long-suffering wife through Mystic Seaport a couple years ago. It was just incredible.Here's my thread on one whaler that got away and survives to this day: http://civilwartalk.com/threads/whaler-charles-w-morgan-and-mystic-seaport-conn.111002/
And if anyone hasn't seen it, there was just out this fall an excellent film about the voyage of the Essex that Andy mentioned.
a 19th century whaleman from New Bedford or Nantucket would have found unfathomable.
So the scuttle buck is to give it the deep six?
My first thought as well, but I didn't say anything.Who'da thunk that the Confederates would have been the Victorian era's answer to Greenpeace?
Wow! He looks so much Like Gregory Peck, you know, the actor who played Captain Ahab in the movie Moby Dick.
Did anyone see the movie based off this book over Christmas...
I did, good film, but heavily fictionalized. Won't spoil it unless someone asks.
I like most of Ron Howard's work - was it up to standard for him? Chris Hemsworth is the most wooden actor since Steven Seagal, but after dissing Russell Crowe I've learned my lesson!
I can't claim to be a movie critic, but it's well done. Most of my issues are with the script; there are a number of Hollywoodish additions to the history, I guess to provide conflict and make it a 'better' story. I don't know enough about moviemaking to say whether that's on Howard or the writers or someone else.
This probably isn't too much of a spoiler - when the ship is rammed by the whale, it manages to burst into orange flames, like everything does in the movies In fact she sank rather slowly; the crew were able to spend some time aboard, fixing and stocking the whaleboats as best they could.
Whalers were about the only ships at that time which routinely carried enough boats for the entire crew. There were no such things as lifeboats as we think of them. A whaleship's crew was based on six men per boat (3-5 boats) plus a few 'idlers'. Essex carried twenty men, manned three boats, and left IIRC the cook and cabin boy to tend the ship while the hunt was on. So when she sank, two of the boats had to carry one extra man.
The 'ship' is actually a brig, but they may have had to use what they could get. It would be interesting to see a 'making of' video to see the mix of real ship, sets, water tank, and CGI they used.
...The 'ship' is actually a brig, but they may have had to use what they could get. It would be interesting to see a 'making of' video to see the mix of real ship, sets, water tank, and CGI they used.
Okay, on the subject of whaling, just had the chance to look at some original share certificates for a couple of whalers from the 1840s or 50s... very neat part of my day
Usually ships were owned by a group of persons... no real organized companies, but shared owners.. kinda like they had stock in the ship... so when the oil came back, the owners had their shares, then the Captain, the officers, and then the whalermen... the sailors usually ended up with a very small profit for there services. and they signed for so much of a share.. Now, were these sailors contracts, or owners percentages, I am not sure, having never seen these kind of documents before.Here is my question were whalers finance by selling shares for one ship going to sea or were there whaling companies that owned more than one ship and sold shares to finance their fleets.
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