The Voyage of the Thames: Coda

When she anchored at Maui, the Thames had been at sea for some 15 months.  She would continue whaling for another eighteen months more, generally having as bad a time of it as they had for the first half of the voyage.  Their hard luck up to this point likely played a hand in souring the mood between everyone on board.  Smith tells of a number of fights, desertions and general bad times.  “Twenty-two months to the day since we left our native home,“ Smith writes on May 7 1845.  “Long and tedious has it been…” Smith put much of the blame on the boat-steerers (harpooners), whom he called “very poor whalemen,” adding “This is a long, tedious and disagreeable voyage, and I fear [it] will prove a very unprofitable one.”  Smith’s mood doesn’t improve over the following months, writing on June 26th 1845 “This is my birthday: 26 years of age.  Time is rapidly passing and I am advancing in life.  Two such voyages as this would make an old man of anybody…”

The Thames returned to Hawaii in October 1845, then headed for the coast of New Zeeland for a few more weeks of whaling.  With the crew growing more and more impatient, Captain Bishop finally gave the word to head for home on February 9th 1846. 

She arrived back in Sag Harbor on June 2 1846 with 2,000 barrels of oil – a fair amount in and of itself, but not a great showing given the time she was at sea.  If there was one saving grace, it was that the price of oil had risen from 63 cents a gallon in 1843 when she had left to 88 cents when she returned.

We hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into the life and times on board a Sag Harbor whaleship in the 1840s.  The village fleet (and the American whaling fleet overall) would soon after face difficult times: The Gold Rush of 1849 would attract so many men to California is was almost impossible to find enough men to fill a crew. Oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859, and while it would take some time for the petroleum industry to grow, it was clear that whale oil could never compete in quantity.  Lastly, the Civil War produced another manpower shortage for the fleet, as well as making it dangerous to sail – Confederate raiders were always on the lookout for Yankee whaling ships.

Sag Harbor sent out her last whaleship in 1871 – the brig Myra.   She never returned, being condemned in Barbados in 1874.  After some 125 years, Sag Harbor was a whaling village no more.