Moby Dick was based on the true story of the
Essex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaleship_EssexOn November 20, 1820, the Essex was struck and pushed multiple times by a sperm whale. The ship sank 2,000 miles (3,700 km) off South America. The twenty sailors set out in three small whaleboats, with wholly inadequate supplies of food and water.......
They were rescued by the Nantucket Whaleship Dauphin 95 days after the Essex sank.
First Mate Owen Chase wrote an account of the disaster, the Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex; this was used by Herman Melville as one of the inspirations for his novel Moby-Dick, which really only tells the first part of this tragic Whaleship Essex story.
The cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson, wrote another account titled The Loss of the Ship "Essex" Sunk by a Whale and the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats which was not published until 1984 by the Nantucket Historical Association. Nickerson wrote his account late in his life and it was lost until 1960. It was not until 1980 that it came into the hands of Nantucket whaling expert Edouard Stackpole that its importance was realized. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is a National Book Award winning work of maritime history by Nathaniel Philbrick. It tells the story of the Essex including the point of view of Nickerson in addition to that of Chase.
