More About Whaling

I don't think that whales were afraid of those rowboats used by whalers up until the 20th Century.   They probably wouldn't even notice their approach if the whales were busy feeding.  Modern whalers hunt from larger ships and launch their harpoons from a greater distance with cannons, which is not as sporting, but it's more humane to man and beast alike than the old fashioned way.  In the old days, I suspect that many whales, and whalers too for that matter, were lost in the process and never recovered.  Modern tribal whalers are allowed to shoot their whale with a rifle, but only after it has been struck with a harpoon tied to a float, to maximize the recovery rate for the whales and the survival rate of the whalers.

I have seen the movie several times (the good version with Gregory Peck), but have never read the book.  However, I was able to find this quote on Wiki, which explains why it's possible to kill whales with harpoons:

 "In most land animals there are certain valves or flood gates in many of their veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities is, to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well springs of far off and undiscernible hills."

— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851^[7