| Collection |
MHS (unaccessioned) General |
| Description |
Cast Iron Whaling Trypot
This cast iron whaling trypot from Port Underwood, was used for rendering down blubber for oil. Once a whale was captured, the grueling process of cutting-in (flensing off the blubber) and trying-out (rendering the blubber into oil in the tryworks on deck) would begin. Pots were built into a whaling vessel in pairs. It is possible that this trypot was used on a whaling ship, or at a later shore-based whaling station.
Similar examples date from the first quarter of the nineteenth century, before around 1825. They often had secondary careers once the early whaling days were over. This one was used on Marlborough's farms as a pot for boiling tobacco leaves, the extract of which was used for making a sheep dip. Sheep were immersed in the dip to control external parasites. The hole in the pot was made was for letting the liquid out.
Later in its life, this trypot was used for boiling tar, barbed fencing wire was coated in tar to stop rusting when used underground. Tar-coated barbed wire was used to obstruct burrowing rabbits on local farms. It was during this period that the base of the trypot is believed to have cracked.
From whales to sheep, and rabbits, this trypot has a story to tell of the Marlborough economy in the nineteenth century. Today the appearance of the trypot still gives us clues as to it former uses.
Label by Steve Austin, 17 March 2015.
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| Object ID |
0000.800.0244 |
| Object Name |
Pot, Try |
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