A harpoon is a long, spear-like projectile used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other hunting to shoot, kill, and capture large fish or marine mammals such as seals, sea cows, and whales. It impales the target and secures it with barb or toggling claws, allowing the fishermen or hunters to use an attached rope or chain to pull and retrieve ...

2022年10月26日 · HARPOONS. The harpoon was central to the whale fisheries of the world. Harpoons have been used for at least a thousand years to capture whales and large fish. The Basques of 900 A.D. were among the earliest whalers. Their word arpoi, meaning to fasten or hold, became arpon in Spanish, and harpoon, or harping iron, in English.

2022年7月29日 · The harpoon, known as a "whale iron," would penetrate the whale's blubber and secure the whale to the whaleboat. The harpoon was not designed to kill the whale. For a four-year voyage, a whaleship would carry 150-200 harpoons. In the late 1800s, the standard harpoon was the Temple toggle iron.

2022年10月26日 · HARPOON: When a whale was sighted, the whaleboats were cleared away. The six-man crew in the boat chased the whale hoping to harpoon it just after it surfaced. At this point the whale could not dive again until it "had his spoutings out" or enriched its blood supply with oxygen for another hour-long dive.

The whaling harpoon, or “iron” as it was called by the men who used it, was little more than a huge fishhook. Its purpose was to fasten and hold the “fish” until it could be killed by the hand lance or gun-fired explosive lance.

2022年10月26日 · In 1872 Charles Freeman of Brewster, Massachusettes patented an explosive-head harpoon (U.S. Patent No. 126,388, May 7, 1872). In The Whale Fishery and Its Appliances, 1883, James Templeman Brown said this iron, charged with 3/4 lb. of gunpowder, was used for killing finback whales off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusettes.

2018年10月22日 · Whaling is the practice of hunting and killing whales by humans for multiple purposes and has been going on for more than a thousand years. Throughout the centuries, whaling became increasingly intense and widespread, especially with the development of the exploding harpoon and better boat engines to chase down the whales.

The invention and use of 19th-century harpoons revolutionized the whaling industry by providing a safer and more efficient method of hunting whales. These harpoons enabled whalers to capture larger species and led to the development of innovative techniques such …

2022年8月25日 · How Were Whales Killed In The 1800S? The harpoon, known to crews as the “whale iron,” was used to fasten the whale to the whaleboat, rather than to kill it. It was designed to penetrate blubber and hold securely, like a hook. A whaleship embarking on a four-year voyage in the mid- nineteenth century usually carried 150-200 harpoons.

The harpoon needed to hit the whale just behind the last rib so that it would go forwards into the body cavity and explode amongst the vital organs. Too far forwards and it would hit a rib so causing it to explode on the surface of the whale, not an immediately fatal or debilitating blow and more crucially, not anchoring the whale with the ...