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Owen Chase (October 7, 1797 – March 7, 1869) was first mate of the whaler Essex, which sank in the Pacific Ocean on November 20, 1820, after being rammed by a sperm whale. Soon after his return to Nantucket, Chase wrote an account of the shipwreck and
Dec 28, 2015 · Owen Chase’s first hand account of the whale describes it as male, and this has determined the way most accounts speak of the incident. But of course there’s at least a 50% per cent chance...
- Angela Cockayne
- Captain George Pollard Jr.
- Owen Chase
- Matthew Joy
- Thomas Nickerson
Captain George Pollard Jr. is a 28-year-old with his first command on the whaleship Essex. Pollard is skilled enough to command a whaleship, but he lacks the authoritarian "fishiness" required for a captain to succeed. He makes his decisions through democratic consensus with his two officers and ends up overriding his own instincts, which results i...
Owen Chase is the first mate of the Essex, having just moved up from boatsteerer. Although he is only 22 years old, he believes he knows enough to be a captain. He overrides the captain's decisions twice, and the result is that only eight men survive the Essexshipwreck. Chase writes about the disaster, making himself look heroic in his own account ...
Matthew Joy is the second mate on the Essexand four years older than Owen Chase. When he goes to sea he is already sick, so when the shipwrecked crew suffer the privations of dehydration and starvation, he is the first to die. Joy simply follows whatever Owen Chase says in talking the captain out of his best instincts.
Thomas Nickerson is a 14-year-old orphan who goes to sea for the first time, as a cabin boy on the Essex. When he is past 70 he writes his own account of the Essex disaster. Nickerson is aboard the Essexwith Owen Chase when the whale attacks. He ends up in the whaleboat with Chase for the harrowing journey back to South America.
Nov 19, 2020 · In the Heart of the Sea tells the story of the Essex, a whaleship from Nantucket--what was one the whaling center of the world--that was rammed and eventually sunk in the South Pacific ocean by a sperm whale in 1820.
Dec 11, 2015 · Touches that might seem fiercely ironic in different filmmaking hands—such the moment when Hemsworth’s first mate, Owen Chase, tries to harpoon the vengeful whale for the second time, but freezes after staring into one of its huge, curious eyes—seem merely silly here.
The keys to understanding the facts of the events were Owen Chase’s account written within months of his rescue, and a journal written by Thomas Nickerson, discovered in 1980, which challenges some of Chase’s statements.
The first words a baby was taught included the language of the chase—"townor," for instance, a Wampanoag word meaning that the whale has been sighted for a second time. Bedtime stories told...
