There was no nylon fishing line in 1818 to 1820

This might be an obvious observation. However, after we watched In the Heart of the Sea which is a true story of what happened to the Whaling ship Essex and the crew which inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick, I wondered myself why they didn't fish more towards the end of the movie to stay alive after my wife asked about this quandary?

What finally dawned on me today was that nylon fishing line didn't exist until the 1930s likely because Nylon wasn't invented until then and used on synthetic nylon rubber tires for the war effort and in many other mechanical pieces and products after that.

So, since there was no nylon fishing line then the men only had whale oil to burn to stay warm on the long boats and thread from their clothes to use as fishing line which isn't very strong or they could spear fish with whaling spears I suppose. So, this is why they had the problems they did then.

Today as long as you have some nylon fishing line you might survive more easily if set adrift alone in a small boat in the Pacific ocean. But then it was much tougher to survive then without nylon fishing line. You can collect rain water on your sail and fish and possibly survive for months that way if you are really lucky and don't go through too bad a storm.

If you use many theads spun together they are going to deteriorate and break within a few weeks from the pulling of the fish upon the deteriorating cloth thread lines. I suppose if you have enough rope you could take a few lines of the rope and peel them back to make fishing line but even then it won't last very long in the ocean all the time before it rots and breaks. You could use a large rope for fishing but then I don't think you are going to fool the fish and the fish might be afraid of the rope like it's an eel or other fish that might eat them and swim away fast.

So, in the end what the men experienced was completely realistic to the times. Also, it might be important to know that possibly on this ship only the Captain, 1st mate and 2nd mate knew how to read. Or if the rest knew a little reading and writing it was not much. So, the only really educated people on the boat likely were the Captain and the 1st and 2nd mate. The rest likely hadn't finished grade school if that in 1818 when they sailed off to get whale oil which was used in lamps in europe and the U.S. It was a market in it's own way then sort of like oil out of the ground started to become around 1850 and after.