Ellen Jacobson's Blog

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Provisioning For A Voyage | Modern Sailboats vs. Whaling Ships

See that list above? It's from a list of "Stores and Outfits for a First-Class Whale Ship, For a Cape Horn Voyage." {You can see the full list here.} My mom is really into genealogy and does a lot of research on our seafaring ancestors who hailed from New England and made their living on whaling ships. So, from time-to-time, she sends me little tidbits about what life might have been like for them.

I love food. I love thinking about food. I love daydreaming about food. And I really love eating food. So this particular tidbit about the food provisions they would carry was right up my alley.

My great-great grandmother gave birth on a whaling ship in Tahiti. Her husband was the captain, and one of the perks of being the captain is that you got to take your wife on long voyages with you. I'm not entirely convinced that that would have been a perk for the wives. Years onboard a boat as the only woman, hoping you wouldn't be attacked by sea monsters and sink to the bottom - no thanks.

I used to wonder how my great-great grandmother could have lived such a life, but then I saw that one of the provisions they stocked was 50 pounds of chocolate. I'm pretty sure that was intended entirely for the captain's wife's consumption.

It's interesting to compare the whaling ship list of provisions to what we take when we're out cruising. In many ways it's similar - chocolate, coffee, canned meat, flour, sugar, onions, rice etc.

But there were a few things I don't have a clue about. What is saleratus? And what do you do with a bottle of essence of spruce? If you know, leave your answer in the comments. Even if you don't know the answer, have a guess.

Are you interested in genealogy? Would you have voyaged on a whaling ship around Cape Horn? Know anything about saleratus and essence of spruce?

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