Wikipedia
A boatsteerer was a position on a nineteenth-century whaleship. One of the most responsible members of the crew, his duty was to pull the forward oar of a whaleboat until reaching striking distance of a whale. He then would harpoon the whale with an iron while the boat-handler (mate) guided the boat.
Usage examples of "boatsteerer".
To help these young women identify them as hunters, boatsteerers wore chockpins (small oak pins used to keep the harpoon line in the bow groove of a whaleboat) on their lapels.
The mate climbed into the stern of his whaleboat and the boatsteerer took his position in the bow as the four oarsmen remained on deck and lowered the boat into the water with a pair of block-and-tackle systems known as the falls.
Once the boat was floating in the water beside the ship, the oarsmen-either sliding down the falls or climbing down the side of the ship-joined the mate and boatsteerer.
Aft of the boatsteerer was the bow oarsman, usually the most experienced foremast hand in the boat.
Now the attention turned to the boatsteerer, who had just spent more than a mile rowing as hard as he possibly could.
Having been a boatsteerer on the Essex's previous voyage, Chase had definite ideas on how a whale should be harpooned and maintained a continual patter of barely audible, expletive-laced advice.
New boatsteerers had been known to faint dead away when first presented with the terrifying prospect of attaching themselves to an infuriated sperm whale.
Eventually, however, the boatsteerer made it aft to the steering oar and the mate, who was always given the honor of the kill, took up his position in the bow.
Chase reported, not his boatsteerer, Benjamin Lawrence, who held the harpoon.
A mate took over the harpoon only after he had lost all confidence in his boatsteerer's ability to fasten to a whale.
William Comstocktold of two instances when mates became so disgusted with their boatsteerers' unsuccessful attempts to harpoon whales that they ordered them aft and took the iron themselves.
The boatsteerer vowed that if he should ever get out of the whaleboat alive, he would save the string as a memorial to the ordeal.
As was customary aboard a whaleship, the food served in the forecastle (where the blacks lived) had been a grade below the miserable fare that had been served to the boatsteerers and young Nantucketers in steerage.
In Pollard's boat were his boatsteerer, Obed Hendricks, along with their fellow Nantucketers Barzillai Ray, Owen Coffin, and Charles Ramsdell, and the African American Samuel Reed.
Not only were these men under the command of a seriously ill second mate, but Chappel's decision to remain on the island had left them without a boatsteerer to assist Joy in the management of the crew.