Talk:Whaler

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

move. -- Kjkolb 03:46, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Whale catcher?

I thought that the proper term for a ship that goes after whales is whaler.

Perhaps it's an 'across-the-pond' terminology-thing. 213.40.3.65 03:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * According to the former whalers behind http://www.lardex.net/ (which in part has been copied, wikified and improved in List of ships built at Framnæs shipyard and some related pages) -the term is whaler. Nordby73 18:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That's what Melville uses. Septentrionalis 21:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I have no objection to moving the article to Whaler. But, in order to preserve the edit history of this article the existing Whaler will have to be removed.  It was originally a redirect to whaling.  Why didn't the person who started this article just change the redirect to Whaling into a real article about Whalers?  I don't know.  Er, um.  I started this article.  I guess I didn't know any better then.  --  Geo Swan 23:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The Whale catcher article did not excist when the first Whaler redirect page was created. The requested move will preserve the edit history of Whale catcher. Nordby73 21:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Whale Catcher
The term "whale catcher" refers to a steam or diesel-driven ship with a harpoon gun mounted at its bows designed to catch whales. The proper term for a sail or steam-driven ship that uses open boats to capture whales is a "whaleship". The whaleship of former years would be equivalent to today's factory ship, which also processes whales into marketable products. Seeing as how whaleships (with the exception of bottlenose whalers) only process whales and were not involved in the actual capture of whales, such a term as "whale catcher" can not be applied to these vessels. I guess you could say the whaleship's whaleboats would be equivalent to today's whale catcher. Hope this clears things up. Jonas Poole (talk) 21:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Navy Whaler
This - http://intheboatshed.net/2007/01/29/447/ - is a whaler. 122.106.177.130 (talk) 23:43, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. There should be separate articles for "whaleship", "whaling factory ship" and "whale catcher". The term "whaler" is too ambiguous, referring to a boat, a ship, and a person. SaberToothedWhale (talk) 22:29, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * No argument from me there... I added all those terms to the lead section because I saw that they all redirect to this article...   btw, I like your 'harpoon vessel' line, LOL.   Groll &tau;ech  ( talk ) 22:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I cringe any time I see the term "harpoon vessel" used. Thanks to the media and "Whale Wars" its unfortunately the most common term used today, despite decades of literature referring to them as "whale catchers" or "catcher boats". Even "killer boats" (too emotional a term for some) I'll accept -- often used to refer to the vessels that worked the California coast back in the 1920s and 1930s. But "harpoon vessel"? They're not intended just to "harpoon" whales, but catch them. Same reason the Norwegians hated when anyone called them "chaser boats" (Robert Lloyd Webb sadly calls them that), because they didn't "chase" them, they caught them. Besides, from the 1860s to the early 1920s they mainly stalked them, as the boats weren't fast or durable enough to outrun or outlast them. The "Prussian pursuit" wasn't developed until the 1920s, when boats would run them down until they were exhausted, then harpoon them. SaberToothedWhale (talk) 22:45, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Congo loss
Not clear why some newspaper articles refer to this vessel as a whaling barge. She was clearly engaged as a ferry, not a whaler, and the photos available do not suggest a whaler.Acad Ronin (talk) 03:09, 23 December 2021 (UTC)