Once in a while even the cowed crew would revolt, and infrequent stories of mutiny and murder appear in the record of the whale trade.

The whaler, like a man-of-war, carried a larger crew than was necessary for the work of navigation, and it was necessary to devise work to keep the men employed.
As a result, the ships were kept cleaner than any others in the merchant service, even though the work of trying out the blubber was necessarily productive of smoke, soot, and grease.
As a rule the voyage to the Pacific whaling waters was round Cape Horn, though occasionally a vessel made its way to the eastward and rounded the Cape of Good Hope.

Almost always the world was circumnavigated before return.

In early days the Pacific whalers found their game in plenty along the coast of Chili; but in time they were forced to push further and further north until the Japan Sea and Bering Sea became the favorite fishing places.
The whale was usually first sighted by the lookout in the crow's nest.

A warm-blooded animal, breathing with lungs, and not with gills, like a fish, the whale is obliged to come to the surface of the water periodically to breathe.