What is the name of the ship in "Moby-Dick"?

The ship in Moby-Dick is the Pequod. It is a fictional Nantucket whaling ship commanded by Captain Ahab during the novel’s central voyage in pursuit of Moby Dick.

Ishmael encounters the Pequod after traveling to Nantucket with Queequeg. The ship sets out on a voyage intended to last three years, crossing the Atlantic, Indian, and South Pacific oceans. Although it is a working whaler, Ahab secretly—or at least initially—redirects its purpose toward hunting the white whale.

The name Pequod refers to the Pequot people, an Indigenous people of the northeastern United States. Melville’s choice of name foreshadows the ship’s destruction and gives the vessel a historical and symbolic dimension. Readers sometimes confuse it with the Rachel, Delight, or Essex: those are other ships associated with the novel or its inspirations, but they are not Ahab’s ship.