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If the Basques were the first to commercialize whaling in the 11th century, it was the Americans who took it global. From the 18th to the 20th century, thousands of whaling ships the majority flying the US flag scoured the world’s oceans in search of cetaceans. The Americans’ large ships allowed them to process the whales at sea, harvesting the valuable oil, baleen, and ambergris without having to return to port first. Since they were paid by the whale, the American whalers set themselves ambitious targets. Reaching them, however, wasn’t always easy.
Early industrial whaling was incredibly inefficient. Harpoons were prone to breakage or loss. Whales would fight back, and use their tails to flood the whalers’ small pursuit boats. Other whales would swim around rocks when harpooned, eventually prising the weapon out, “and all the labour would be lost, which hath often happened,” lamented Frederic Marten, a 17th century British whaler. Some wounded whales