Essex
Noun: a 238-ton whaling ship, based out of Nantucket Island (USA), famously sunk on November 20, 1820 in an encounter with "Mocha Dick", an albino sperm whale defending his pod against human predation. Incident widely acknowledged as the direct inspiration for Herman Melville's 1851 novel "Moby-Dick, or The Whale".
"Following the second hull strike by Mocha Dick, the Essex crew had only minutes to provision the surviving boats and cast-off before the ship sank."
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