Pequod (Moby-Dick) Pequod (Moby-Dick) Pequod is a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship that appears in the 1851 novel "Moby-Dick" by American author Herman Melville. "Pequod" and her crew, commanded by Captain Ahab, are central to the story, which, after the initial chapters, takes place almost entirely aboard the ship during a three-year whaling expedition in the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans. Most of the characters in the novel are part of "Pequod"s crew, including the narrator Ishmael. Ishmael encounters the ship after he arrives in Nantucket and learns of three ships that are about to leave on three-year cruises. Tasked by
Whaling in Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, concentrated at Antongil Bay. This was predated by native traditional whaling; the artist Theodor De Bry depicted Madagascans whaling as early as 1598. Whaling in Madagascar began on an industrial level as a northward expansion of the sperm whaling trade off the Cape of Good Hope around 1800. Christian Salvesen & Company of Leith, which held more whaling shares than any other single firm, operated briefly off Madagascar. After dispatching the factory ship "Horatio", yields were so low that Salvesen totaled deficits from 1911-1913. Adding insult to injury, while docked at Leith Harbour, the "Horatio" caught