Captain Ahab Captain Ahab Captain Ahab is a fictional character and the main protagonist in Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" (1851). He is the monomaniacal captain of the whaling ship "Pequod". On a previous voyage, the white whale Moby Dick bit off Ahab's leg, and he now wears a prosthetic leg made out of whalebone. The whaling voyage of the "Pequod" ends up as a hunt for revenge on the whale, as Ahab forces the crew members to support his fanatical mission. When Moby Dick is finally sighted, Ahab's hatred robs him of all caution, and the whale drags Ahab to the bottom of
Whaling in Norway from the bow of a shallop. The whale carcass was next towed back to the shore station where the blubber was removed and boiled down. Finally, the whale oil was stored in wooden casks which were loaded onto the anchored ship. The Dutch used Jan Mayen Island as a base for whaling having also established a semi-permanent shore station in the early seventeenth century on Amsterdam Island, Svalbard, which became the village of Smeerenburg. Norwegian ships were also sent to Svalbard during the 18th century. New techniques and technologies, developed in the mid 19th century, revolutionized the whaling industry and