Word: shipped
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Moby Dick. Stinking old sailing whalers have given way to stinking little steamers. Earringed harpooners have yielded to modern marksmen, who earn as much as $10,000 a season for shooting harpoons from a cannon. Instead of being dragged alongside, the whale is pulled aboard a "floating factory" ship and converted into oil right on the spot...
...world's 39 "floating factories," which annually take 3,000,000-odd barrels of whale oil, only two fly the U. S. flag. Smaller of the two is the American Whaling Co.'s 6,400-ton Frango, mother ship and rendering plant for a fleet of six whale chasers. Last spring, when the Frango was about to set out for Shark Bay off Western Australia, the U. S. Coast Guard asked for a volunteer to see that no international treaty provision was violated. Lieutenant Thomas Robley Midtlyng, 29, volunteered...
Back in Manhattan last week, Midtlyng told a whale of a story. His life aboard ship had been clear sailing as far as Shark Bay. There Captain Johannes Smith and his crew found that the bay was overhunted: killing many of the whales that were left (small ones and cows with their young) was prohibited. Largest taken the whole cruise was 49 feet long, 14 feet above the minimum. Captain & crew were tempted to kill undersize whales. According to Lieutenant Midtlyng, they did. Each day the high-bowed, gun-mounted chaser boats set out, each night returned, tugging their targets...
When the Frango put in at its pier off Staten Island, N. Y., Lieutenant Midtylng hopped ashore, made his report. Twenty-four hours later U. S. officials seized the ship's $500,000 cargo, sealed it, filed a libel action against 423 tons of her whale...
...then unaccountably roared back up into the air, the plot began to thicken. A mechanic came back into the cabin, lifted up a corner of carpet, pried at a section of floor board. Those who ventured to look below saw fire apparatus and ambulances gathering on the field. The ship's electrically retractable landing wheels had jammed...