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 the Netherlands national whaling enterprises. The current Dutch government supports a moratorium on all whaling worldwide. The beginnings of Dutch whaling are indirectly attributed to Willem Barentsz (anglicized as William Barents or Barentz) (1550–1597), who was a Dutch navigator and explorer, a leader of early expeditions to the far north. On his last voyage, Barentsz accompanied Jacob van Heemskerck as pilot, and Gerrit de Veer, the historian of the voyage, was on board as first mate. This expedition's discovery of the Arctic archipelago of Spitsbergen (now known as Svalbard) was to become the foundation for lucrative Dutch claims to the whaling grounds