Somehow a discussion I got in we ended up wondering if Captain Ahab from “Moby Dick” owned his ship.
At first my instinct was no. Ships are expensive. Crew are expensive and supplying and operating the ship is expensive. If someone had all that money would they bother sailing all over in what was a dangerous and difficult profession?
But then a vague instinct suggested to me that, at the time, captains often did own their own ships but investors would bankroll voyages which the captain would have to make good on and if he didn’t they’d probably sell his ship.
I didn’t think it was mentioned in the book but the person I was speaking to said they found a bit that said:
Years ago, Peleg, now the co-owner of Pequod, sailed as mate under Ahab.
That implies Ahab was the other co-owner but it is not explicit.
This is not important stuff. We just became curious. Any answers welcome.
A whaling ship’s captain, and the rest of the crew, would have been paid shares of the profits of the voyage upon their return. A captain might get 1/8 of the return, while Ishmael would have received a 1/275 share.
It never occurred to me that Captain Ahab might be a co-owner along with Captain Peleg and Captain Bildad. On the contrary, it explicitly says that he gets a share like everybody else:
I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship’s company.
Yeah - I’ve done a bit of reading on whaling and naval exploration, and read MD several times, and it never crossed my mind that Ahab - or any other captain - would also be an owner.
I’m sure it happened occasionally, but not the norm. In fact, the only example I can think of was a character in the TV show Poldark!
