In this episode we look at the wreck of the Essex, a whaling ship out of Nantucket that in 1820 was attacked by a giant sperm whale in the Pacific and sunk, leaving its 20 man crew drifting on three whaleboats thousands of miles from land. The journey they took is a terrifying story of the limits of human survival, and became an inspiration for Herman Melville's novel 1851 novel "Moby Dick."

Our primary sources for this episode are:

"In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathan Philbrick

"The Loss of the Whale Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale: First Person Accounts" by Owen Chase, Thomas Nickerson and others

Music in this episode is courtesy of musopen.org

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