Hms essex Model kitOCCRE

Product description : HMS ESSEX

In November 1820, the sinking of the whaler Essex and the survival of part of its crew shocked the population of the United States. This boat had left Nantucket a year earlier for a new whaling campaign which was to last two and a half years in the South Pacific.

Commanded by Captain George Pollard, the whaling ship Essex was attacked at several times by a large whale before sinking 3,700 km from the coast of South America. Only eight of the 21 members of the crew could be saved.

Herman Melville was inspired by this tragic shipwreck to write Moby Dick, one of the great works of universal literature. The title of the novel comes from the name of a real whale, "Mocha Dick", which was sighted in the 19th century, near Mocha Island, in southern Chile.

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