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
Cornwall (1794 ship) Cornwall (1794 ship) Cornwall was launched in 1794 as a West Indiaman. In a little more than three years later she had left on the first of three whaling voyages to the Southern Whale Fishery. On her first whaling voyage she captured a Spanish ship and fought off a French privateer. After her third whaling voyage "Cornwall" returned to the West Indies trade. Around 1817 new owners sent her to India where a Parsi merchant purchased her. She traded in the Arabian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, and also participated as a transport in a naval expedition to the Gulf.