Trywork

Have you ever heard of a trywork? Well, I hadn't either till I was reading Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea. Turns out tryworks were boiling pots that were a distinguishing marker of whaling ships in the eighteen hundreds. After a whale had been harpooned, killed and brought back to the ship, the blubber was chopped up into thin slices that were called "bible leaves" and boiled to turn them into usable oil. This allowed them to stay on the water longer as the blubber by itself would get spoilt and the oil prevented that from happening.

Oh and by the way, you should read that book if you are interested in maritime literature. Great book. Vivid details, sometimes gory and unnecessary but very informative.