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[00:00.66]In the 19th century,
[00:02.04]oil from the whales' massive heads
[00:04.37]could make great fortunes.
[00:06.27]Whalemen targeted the calves first,
[00:08.55]knowing the rest of the pod
[00:09.53]would soon come to their aid
[00:11.53]and into the range of the harpoons.
[00:14.20]But for one ship,
[00:15.37]the whales got their revenge.
[00:17.58]Without warning,
[00:19.11]a huge bull rammed the hull of the 87-foot Essex.
[00:22.21]Within days,
[00:23.52]the broken ship was lost to the deep.
[00:27.11]With their ship gone,
[00:28.68]the 21 survivors squeezed into three whaleboats, 21
[00:32.07]which now became their lifeboats.
[00:34.00]The men salvaged what they could,
[00:36.25]but they were woefully ill-equipped
[00:38.09]for the trials that lay ahead.
[00:40.06]The survivors of the Essex were in virtually unexplored waters, EsseX
[00:45.09]2,000 miles west of South America on the equator,
[00:49.22]almost as far from land as it's possible to be.
[00:52.22]They were about to find out just how challenging survival in the South Pacific can be.