The whaleboat is from twenty-two to thirty feet in length, and is provided with five or six oars. It is so formed as to float lightly on the water, move with speed, and turn easily round. The best are composed of straight, one-half inch cedar boards, ruppled and bent to the required shape, by which means their elasticity is greatly increased—the rapid and dangerous movements of the whale render these various qualities indispensable. The principal weapons with which the whale-fishery are supplied are the harpoon and lance. The harpoon is an instrument about three feet long, composed of iron, and consists of three conjoined parts—the socket, shank, and withers or barbs. Much attention is paid to the manufacture of the shank of the harpoon because on its flexibility the retention of a harpooned whale depends. If the shank should break during the plunges of the whale, the animal is lost. The lance is a more simple instrument; it is about ten feet long, and has a sharp flat point or tongue of steel seven inches long. This instrument and the harpoon, together with lines and boat, are all the apparatus actually necessary for capturing a whale. On the ship reaching the fishing ground, preparations are immediately made for commencing the business of capture. Three or four boats are always kept suspended[166] from the cranes, by the side of the ship, in such a position that they can be lowered into the water with their complement of men and the whole necessary apparatus, in the space of one minute. Previously to this time the harpoons and line have been got in order. The socket of the harpoon is furnished with a stock or handle, six or eight feet long, and fastened in its place by means of a splice of strong rope called a foreganger. To this is attached five or six fathoms of line, called the stray line; and this is connected with the other lines of the boat, neatly coiled up in each boat, and about 4300 feet of rope, made of the best hemp, and about two and a half inches in circumference. A hatchet, bucket, and a few other articles, are put into the boat.