In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Setting sail, the survivors hoped to head directly east toward Easter Island. Within a few days, however, they ran into stormy weather that pushed them far south, and they realized they would not be able to reach the island. Matthew Joy was beginning to suffer more greatly than the others and, realizing he would soon die, requested to be transferred to the boat with Captain Pollard: “Now that he was reaching the end, Joy, who had been on a boat with five coofs, wanted to die among his own people” (153). Joy died two days later and was buried at sea, with Obed Hendricks, Pollard’s former boatsteerer, taking over Joy’s boat.

The following day another rainstorm separated Chase’s boat from the two others. Realizing that they were still far from land, Chase decided to cut rations in half yet again. Pollard’s and Hendricks’s boats remained together, but the men of all three boats had now begun to lose consciousness from starvation. Chase at one point lost consciousness for so long that one of the men—Richard Peterson—attempted to steal rations, though this action was quickly condemned and rectified.

Making matters worse, that same night, an enormous shark attacked Chase’s boat.