History

 

Whaleboat Races in New Bedford Harbor

The earliest recorded whaleboat races in New Bedford harbor took place in 1857.  They were part of the celebration for Independence Day. The race started at Pope’s Island, went south, around Palmers Island and back to the start, a distance of about 2 ¾ miles. 

In 1857 the race was won by a whaleboat with the name of Skylark.  The winning time was 25 minutes and 5 seconds. In 1859, Independence Day was again celebrated by holding whaleboat races. The winner this year was a whaleboat called the Flying Fish.

Whaleboat races continued in the harbor until about the turn of the century. They were revived in the mid 1980s.  However, rather than using whaleboats (there were none around except those on display in the Whaling Museum), rowers used lifesaving boats borrowed from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.  

 

The WCRC Whaleboats

In 1997 a group of people interested in the races formed "Whaleboats for the Whaling City" under the auspices of the Waterfront Historic Area League (WHALE). This group raised over $60,000 to build the three Beetle whaleboat replicas that are now used in the Independence Day Whaleboat Race during SummerFest. The Whaling City Rowing Club, Inc. was formed in 1998 and WHALE donated the whaleboats to the WCRC in 1999. 

The major contributors for building the boats were Titleist and FootJoy Worldwide, Compass Bank, Aerovox Corp., the New Bedford Area Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Kalisz and the City of New Bedford and the Crapo Foundation.  In addition, Edson International donated the oarlocks for the boats. 

In honor of the boats that won the Independence Day Whaleboat Races in 1857 and 1859, the WCRC named two of the whaleboats the Skylark and the Flying Fish.  The third boat is named the Herman Melville, to honor the person most identified with New Bedford's maritime heritage.

The WCRC has organized the Independence Day Whaleboat Races at SummerFest since 1999.  The Whaling City Rowing Club’s whaleboats are fiberglass replicas based on the classic whaleboat design of New Bedford's James Beetle. James Beetle and his sons had a boat-building yard in the South End of New Bedford in the 19th century.  They built over 1000 whaleboats during the heyday of whaling.  The boats sold for about $50. 

These new boats, built in 1999, cost $15,000 apiece and are made by Edey and Duff Boat Builders in Mattapoisett.

The whaleboats are 28 feet long, with a six-foot beam.  They weigh about 1,000 lbs. empty.   They row a crew of five people, plus boatsteerer.  There are three rowers on the starboard side and two rowers on the port side.  The uneven number of rowers is unusual for row boats and is due to the fact that the bow rower would turn harpooneer when the boat approached a whale. 

The oars vary in length to compensate for the narrowing beam fore and aft.  The mid-ship oar is 18 feet long.  The oars on either side of the mid-ship (oars 2 and 4) are 17 feet long.  The oars in the stern and bow (oars 1 and 5) are 16 feet long.  The steering oar used by the boatsteerer is 21 feet long.