The whaleboat is a whaling boat which Ahava and his crew tried to harpoon Moby Dick on. In this whale, the captain saw the world’s evil, the tragic fate of mankind.

”Time is infinite, but the things in time, the concrete bodies, are finite. They may indeed disperse into the smallest particles; but these particles, the atoms, have their determinate numbers, and the numbers of the configurations which, all of themselves, are formed out of them is also determinate. Now, however long a time may pass, according to the eternal laws governing the combinations of this eternal play of repetition, all configurations which have previously existed on this earth must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other again…”


— Heinrich Heine