The Charles W. Morgan is the world’s only surviving wooden whaling ship. Every year, around Herman Melville’s birthday on Aug. 1, it’s the setting for a marathon reading of his novel about the great white whale, Moby Dick.
Mary K. Bercaw-Edwards, a Herman Melville scholar at the University of Connecticut, said hearing a marathon reading of Moby Dick on an 1841 whaling ship can make it feel like you’re in the novel.
"You lie on the deck of the ship at night and you look up and you see the stars, and the creaking of the rig, and then you can hear the words of Moby Dick sort of flowing over you and it’s absolutely wonderful and magical," she said.
It took volunteers until noon on Saturday to finish reading each chapter of the 500-page novel.