In *Moby-Dick*, social meetings between whaling ships are called “gams.”
Melville explains the term in Chapter 53, “The Gam,” describing a meeting in which two whaling ships exchange greetings and send boat crews to visit one another. The captains typically remain aboard one vessel while the chief mates visit the other.
A gam was more than a casual sighting. Sailors could exchange news, newspapers, letters, tobacco, and information about whale grounds or ships encountered along the route. Such meetings offered isolated crews a rare chance for conversation and hospitality.
Readers sometimes confuse “gam” with “game,” but Melville treats it as specialized whaling vocabulary. The novel includes several gams, including meetings with the Jungfrau, the Samuel Enderby, and other ships whose stories deepen the voyage’s themes of warning, rivalry, and fate.