Cannibal horror of the sailors shipwrecked by the real Moby Dick

As the whaleship Dauphin cleaved through the clear waters of the Pacific Ocean, the men on deck noticed a battered boat with a ragged sail, bobbing towards them.

At first it appeared there was no one on board, but then, as they drew near and peered down, the crew were shocked to see lying in the bottom of it, a pile of bones.

Among the bones they realised that two of the ‘skeletons’ were alive, if only just: a boy and a man, covered in ulcers and too emaciated and weak to move. With what strength they had they sucked on the bones, clutching at them possessively, as if ‘loth to part with them’.

The pair were Captain George Pollard, of the whaling ship Essex, and Charles Ramsdell, a young sailor. After they were hauled aboard the Dauphin, and given food and water, they related a story so horrifying even the hardened sailors shivered.

Their ship had sunk on November 20, 1820 — and they had spent the past three months in the flimsy 25ft-long whaleboat, their food and water supplies gradually dwindling, their shipmates dying one by one, until, maddened by hunger and facing death, they turned to the last resort of shipwrecked men: cannibalism. The bones they had been found sucking on were those of their dead shipmates.

Their account of how they came to be shipwrecked after their ship was rammed and overturned by an enormous sperm whale inspired the novel Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville 30 years after the event.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2470795/Cannibal-horror-sailors-shipwrecked-real-Moby-Dick-Two-new-films-reveal-TRUE-story--victims-drew-lots-decide-eat-first.html