Quotes About Whaleships

Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how could I—being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude—how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all whaleships' standing orders, Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time.

There was also the whalemen's traditional social pursuit—the gam. Originally a Nantucket word which meant a group of whales, gam became applied to a group of whaleships that had gathered together to exchange gossip and news.