Sail whaler’s story sees light of day

Nearly frozen to death in the Antarctic and boiled alive under tropical skies. The life and times of the last sail whaler in Foveaux Strait is to be told by the adventurer himself.

Stewart Island-born Captain William (Bill) McKillop may have died in 1938, but the book to be published 80 years later would definitely be in his own words, coeditor Rhys Richards, of Paremata, Wellington, said.

In his introduction to the book, Richards said Australian poet, balladeer and novelist Will Lawson was inspired by McKillop when he wrote Bill the Whaler published in 1944.

‘‘He acknowledged specifically that his inspiration came from his yarning with a locally famous Hobart whaler. Not only did Lawson dedicate his first book to the memory of Captain Bill McKillop and other veteran whalers, but he also wrote in his introduction ‘the late Captain McKillop was practically the last of the old-time [sail] whalers’.

‘‘Their life was unbelievably hard and ill paid; only the spice of danger and the wild, rough romance of the life kept them going, after sheer poverty had driven them to sign on for another voyage. Yet they had some compensations, some happiness in the [bravado of the] game, these pioneers of the [sail] whaling days,’’ Richards said.

What is less well known is that Bill McKillop was born on Stewart Island in 1865, grew up in Riverton, first visited Hobart in 1882, and wrote a lively account of his life and his whaling, which has not been published until now.

The book is called The Last of the Sail Whalers: Whaling off Tasmania and Southern New Zealand by Captain William McKillop, and is edited by Richards and Graeme Broxam, of Navarine Publishing in Hobart.

It will be published in May in Hobart where McKillop died, aged 74.

His obituary says he was one of the last links with the Tasmanian whaling industry.

For 25 years he was actively engaged in sealing and whaling.

Ironically, he was considered both a whaler and naturalist.

He was also an expert on the subantarctic islands, and made many valuable observations on the life and habits of seabirds.

He first visited Tasmania when he was 17, and was so taken with the place that he decided to make it his home. McKillop married a Tasmanian and had two sons and three daughters.