Now redundent a once deck mounted Whaling Harpoon Cannon looks out over Leith Dock Edinburgh. SCO 9294
William Congreve, a British inventor who invented some of the first rockets for military use, designed a rocket-propelled harpoon for whaling in the 1820s. The shell was designed to explode on contact and impale the whale with the harpoon. The weapon was in turn attached by a line to the boat, and the hope was that the explosion would generate enough gas within the whale to keep it afloat for retrieval. Expeditions were sent out to try this new technology; many whales were killed, but most of them sank. Although it was the invention of Foyn in the 1870s that modernized the whaling industry with regard to sperm whales, these earlier devices, called bomb lances did become widely used for the hunting of other whales, including humpbacks and Right whales. A notable user of these early explosive harpoons was the American Thomas Welcome Roys in 1865, who set up a shore station in Seydisfjördur, Iceland. A slump in oil prices after the American Civil War forced their endeavor into bankruptcy in 1867. Norwegian, Svend Foyn, also studied the American method in Iceland. In 1867, a Danish fireworks manufacturer, Gaetano Amici, patented a cannon fired harpoon, and in the same year, an Englishman, George Welch, patented a grenade harpoon very similar to Foyn's later successful invention. Another early version of the explosive harpoon was designed by Jacob Nicolai Walsøe, a Norwegian painter and inventor. His 1851 application was rejected by the Interior Ministry on the grounds that he had received public funding for his experiments. Bomb lance whaling harpoon, pictured in 1878, prominent in the famous whaling legal case, Ghen v. RichIn 1870, a Norwegian man named Svend Foyn successfully patented and pioneered the exploding the modern whaling harpoon and gun. His basic design is still in use today. He perceived the failings of other methods and solved these problems in his own system. He included, with the help of Esmark, an expolding grenade tip to kill the whale.
Size: 6063px × 4035px
Location: Leith Dock, Edinburgh. Midlothian. Scotland. United Kingdom.
Photo credit: © David Gowans / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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