Nantucket -- If you hunted whales, you would cast off from the mother ship in a skiff such as this. Nantucket no longer has a whaling industry but it has one of the best whaling museums in the world. It's what you'd expect in a place whose economy depends upon tourism and vacation homes.It takes a certain amount of desperation for farmers to attack whales in such boats. In 1715, farmers set out in six ships seeking nearby whales. Gradually trips got longer and by the end of the century, they were routinely rounding Cape Horn. The market they served was primarily in England where not only homes were lit, but streetlights were being installed in cities and left burning all night.Nantucket had a virtual lock on supplying officers to ships; their elite would send boys at age 15 to learn the trade. If they didn't make captain by age 26 or so, they would move on to other professions. Officers over age 35 were rare, so hard was the life at sea.
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