whale line

plural whale lines · alternative whaleline

1. A thick rope connecting a harpoon to the line tub

   Four or five feet of the stern was decked in and through this decking protruded a short post called the loggerhead, used for checking the whale line.

   1961, Tom Mead, Killers of Eden, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 21

   1 more example

   The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Castaway”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC