Historedia
Episode 2 of 3

Boat Journey

When
November 22, 1820
Where
Pacific Ocean
Part of
Whaleship Essex sunk by a sperm whale in the Pacific

The crew set off in three whaleboats on November 22, 1820, aiming for South America.

They voted against heading to the Marquesas Islands due to fears of cannibals. The boats had to sail south for 1,000 miles before turning east towards South America, which lay another 3,000 miles away.

Sources

  1. Essex (whaleship) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
  2. Owen Chase Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-26

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.