The ship celebrating a successful whaling voyage when it meets the Pequod is the Bachelor. The Nantucket whaler is returning home with its hold packed with sperm oil and its crew in a jubilant mood.
The Bachelor appears late in the voyage, in Chapter 115. Its success sharply contrasts with the Pequod’s increasingly ominous pursuit of Moby Dick. The Bachelor’s sailors have taken so many whales that they have had to improvise extra storage and dispose of some gear and provisions to make room for additional oil. Their celebration represents the commercial success that ordinary whaling voyages were supposed to deliver.
The ship’s captain also irritates Ahab by refusing to accept the White Whale as a credible subject of fear or pursuit. To the Bachelor’s crew, the sea offers profitable work and a triumphant journey home; to Ahab, it is the setting for a personal vendetta. Readers sometimes confuse the Bachelor with the Rachel, which later searches for its missing boat, or the Town-Ho, another ship encountered earlier. The Bachelor is the specifically celebratory encounter.