When Herman Melville was twenty-one, he embarked on the
whaleship Acushnet, out of New Bedford. We all know what that led to. This
past summer, Mystic Seaport finished their five-year, 7.5-million-dollar
restoration of the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan, the sister ship to the Acushnet.
The Morgan is in many ways identical to Melville’s fictional Pequod, save
that sperm whale jawbone tiller and a few other sinister touches. Mystic
Seaport celebrated the completion by sailing the Morgan around New
England for a couple months. I went aboard for a night and a day, intent on
following in Ishmael’s footsteps, hoping to breathe a little life into my idea
of the distant, literary ship.
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