| Summary: | WHALERS LEAVE FOR BERING SEA: Glamour Erased From Fleet Of Once-Mighty Ships. WHALERS LEAVE FOR BERING SEA Glamour Erased From Fleet of Once-Mighty Ships SEATTLE, April 2.4 (AP) —A marine note appeared in the papers this week: Sailed: Aberdeen, Moran, Tanginak, 10 A. M., Bering sea. Waterfront observers commented that the "whalers are leaving." Arousing little attention even in maritime circles, the, departure of the tiny "killer" ships for a summer in the North Pacific near the Aleutians was quiet—a wide contrast from the days when whaling was a mighty industry famed in song and story, the days of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick." Three more vessels, the Unimak, Paterson and Kodiak, will sail within a few days. Business Small Now The tiny remnant of the once mighty fleet whose frequent wrecks on Japanese shores was a factor in Commodore Perry's "opening" of Japan, historians say, is now a small-time business, one from which glamour seems gone. "Prices for whale oil are a little better now than a year ago, although they've dropped the past month," said business-like William Schupp, president of the American Pacific Whaling company, owners of the fleet. "We may have a good season." "Whaling in the Antarctic? That's big business, compared to ours."
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