W00215

 

 

Flensing a sperm whale onboard a whaler, at South Georgia. Whales have a thick layer of fat, called blubber or sometimes 'spik', under their skin to keep them warm in cold seas. It makes an excellent insulator. These men have started cutting the blubber off the whale. It can be steam cooked to produce oil, which was once used to make things like candles, soap and lamp oil. The spik was cut off in strips, which might be up to 20 metres long. It took about twenty minutes to strip a whale this size of its blubber. The meat would then be cut off, before the remainder was cut up with a steam driven saw.

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