What Really Happened To The Men Who Stayed On The Island After In The Heart Of The Sea

In the Heart of the Sea is a movie about a harrowing maritime true story. It was a $94M box office disappointment upon release. Despite this, In the Heart of the Sea has unexpectedly become a global Netflix hit a decade later.

Directed by Ron Howard, the movie is based on a book of the same name by Nathaniel Philbrick, published in 2000. Although this source text has 71 mentions of cannibalism, the movie downplays how bad it was, along with other big details missing from the In the Heart of the Sea true story. However, the movie portrays the courage of the survivors well. Three such survivors stayed on Henderson Island.

William Wright, Seth Weeks & Thomas Chappel Survived After Remaining On Henderson Island

The Three Men Who Chose To Stay All Survived The Ordeal

Wright, Weeks and Chappel were the only members of the Essex crew who opted to stay on Henderson Island, while the others set off in the direction of Chile. The voyage ahead in boats that were horrifyingly exposed would have been a prospect that nobody wanted to face. In the movie In The Heart of the Sea, the facts are slightly altered here. They have Matthew Joy, the second mate of the Essex, stay behind on the island to die. In the real story, Joy was one of the 17 who left Henderson Island, dying on the journey.

Captain Pollard (who was in part the inspiration for Captain Ahab in Moby Dick) promised them that if he made it to South America, he would ensure they were rescued from Henderson. He was true to his word. Wright, Weeks, and Chappel were rescued by an Australian ship, the Surry, in April 1821. This was five months after the Essex’s sinking. It is incredible that all three of the men who stayed on the island survived. The others would not be so fortunate – of the 17 who set off for the Chilean coast, only five of them lived.

Pollard Sent The Surry To Rescue The Men On The Island & They Were Saved In April 1821

He Had Previously Promised To If He Got To South America

Honoring his promise, Pollard sent the Surry to rescue the three men in April 1821. This was a few days after he and Ramsdell were rescued by the Dauphin. During their rescue, they were so dissociative that they did not even notice the ship, and became terrified when they saw their rescuers. As soon as they were well enough to inform officials about the men on Henderson Island, they launched the successful Surry rescue mission. The men had survived 102 days on the island with meager supplies, according to Nathaniel Philbrick, writer of In the Heart of the Sea.

According to American Heritage, Henderson Island did have some food, including “birds so innocent of men that they did not stir a feather until grabbed by the throat”. Shortly before Pollard and the others left, they had also finally found fresh water after days of hopeless searching. This means that although there was not enough sustenance on the island to feed the entire crew, the resources on the island seemed like they would enable the three to scrape by. Their stay was not without horror, however; in a cave, they found the skeletons of eight shipwrecked mariners.

Further, the food situation became worse after they remained on the island. Thomas Nickerson, a survivor who wrote about the Essex, spoke with Seth Weeks about the events on the island (per Archive.org). Weeks told the writer that their “sufferings became extreme” and that the birds, now wise to the crew, had fled. Nickerson also relayed the following account from Weeks:

“The fish could rarely be caught. Worse than all, strange as it may appear, the little submerged fresh water spring was never afterwards left dry so as to be come at. And they had only the means left them to catch water In the hollows of the rocks, during showers, which would soon dry up, and they were then left without water until the next rain came on.”

Weeks’ account is harrowing. Despite initially having some resources, his account shows the three men actually survived against staggering odds.

What Happened To Wright, Weeks & Chappel After Being Rescued

Two Out Of Three Men Were Ill-Fated

According to Philbrick, Chappel, Weeks and Wright continued to work on their rescue ship the Surry after being rescued, before returning to England and the U.S. The three survivors of Henderson Island had a wild variety of fates. Chappel retired from sailing to become a missionary. Following this, he died of plague fever in Timor. Wright was lost at sea in a hurricane in the West Indies. Neither wrote publicly about the events they endured, unlike Owen Chase, who wrote a harrowing, wild true story In the Heart of the Sea left out.

Seth Weeks had the best outcome of the three Henderson Island survivors and is a much-needed silver lining to the true maritime horror. According to his memorial on Find a Grave, Weeks was a young man at the time of his rescue (only 16) and after working on the Surry, he returned to Barnstable, MA, where he was born. He eventually became a captain, whereas the disaster would end Pollard’s whaling career. In Weeks’ later years, he retired to Cape Cod. He lived a long life, dying aged 84, and he is buried in Plymouth, MA.

According to Weeks’ obituary, he became blind with age and died peacefully and with the respect and high regard of his people (Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror, 1887). Although his captain status is confirmed, it is unconfirmed whether he returned to whaling specifically. His locality, the time period and the lucrativeness of the whale oil that contextualizes In the Heart of the Sea, spermaceti (devastating to the global whale population) make it seem likely. Another survivor, In the Heart of the Sea’s Chase, definitely returned to whaling; his mental health greatly declined from memories of the ordeal, and he was institutionalized.

Source: Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea, American Heritage, Archive.org, Find a Grave

Your changes have been saved

My List

My Favorite Movies
My Watchlist

Based on the real-life event that inspired Moby Dick, In the Heart of the Sea is directed by Ron Howard and stars Chris Hemsworth as Owen Chase, first mate of the whaling ship Essex who must fight for his life in the middle of the ocean when a whale destroys his ship, killing most of his crew and stranding him and a few survivors on a lifeboat. Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson also star. 

Release Date

December 11, 2015

Runtime

121minutes

Studio(s)

Warner Bros. Pictures

Writers

Charles Leavitt

Distributor(s)

Warner Bros. Pictures

Expand