Whaling; Ice; MV Hada; Flensing; End of Season

A young apprentice captures some of the last days for adventurous British and Norwegian whalers aboard the hulking Southern Venturer floating factory ship and team of catcher boats on the icy Antarctic seas. In this disturbing, graphic film the hunted whales (spotted by helicopter crews) are killed by explosive harpoons and towed to the factory ship. The decks run red with blood as flensers cut blubber from flesh and whales are butchered with steam-driven saws.

The amateur filmmaker Guy Nettleship started his engineering apprenticeship with Scottish firm Christian Salvesen, once the largest whaling company in the world. The company began Antarctic whaling in 1907, and soon established the Leith Harbour Whaling Station on the desolate island of South Georgia. This is the final destination at the end of the season for the British Antarctic whale-catchers, as recorded in this film by Nettleship and colleagues on his first sea voyage in 1959. The industrial-scale Southern Venturer was operated along with the Southern Harvester as the core of whaling expeditions in the years 1950 - 1962. Salvesen left the whaling industry in 1963.