How do you hunt a single whale? asks Eric Bulson in the chapter "Melville's Zig-Zag World Circle" in Novels, Maps, Modernity: The Spatial Imagination
It does seem that the strive for realism and factual resources is a central theme in Moby Dick. Besides the Affidavit chapter, the "structuresque" cetology episodes and the conclusion of the Town Ho chapter that ends with Ishmael's swearing on the bible as to the truthfulness of most events in his tale, the novel ends with a sense of witnessing. From all the roles that Ishmael undertakes in the course of the voyage, he ends by assuming that of the messenger: "'and I only am escaped alone to tell thee'" (469), the sole witness. Witnessing carries both a realistic (court house) and a spiritual (biblical) dimension and Melville is able to maintain both these dimensions of witnessing at the same time therefore, it is possible to assume that the dual meaning of navigating is evoked in the same way.
Similarly, when Ahab pores over his charts every night "plotting" as Bulson describes it, he is both logical and diabolical. Bulson claims that the glimpses of Ahab studying his charts "enforces the idea that tracking down one solitary whale is not such a mad idea after all. Such a scene proves that the man might be mad; his scheme is not" (54). But we are never told about the meanings of the various lines on Ahab's map or the validity of his calculations - he may be drawing dead whales on his chart for all we know or writing his name over and over again (which may be possible considering his monomaniacal interpretation of the doubloon). But even if his calculations are valid, even if he is an experienced captain that somehow maintains his logical faculties while being in a vengeance-frenzy state of mind, it seems that the pseudo-logic is only there to enhance the diabolical nature of Ahab.
Also, the place of encounter- the exact same location where Ahab's leg was severed- is mythical, like Bulson cstates. It does overshadow the logical fallacy of such a voyage and also retrospectively casts a shadow of doubt on a logical enterprise to catch a single whale. But that is ok since the outset of the novel is never strictly logical - there are other forces involved. Bulson calls the scene of the encounter a moment when "the fictional strategies" (61) of "the rules of art" (60) superimpose themselves over "the reality of the chart" (60). It is important to note, though that the reality of the chart never triumphs in quite the same way over the fictional element.
Even when Ishmael embarks on "another meditation on the probability of catching Moby-Dick" (62) I am not sure that Ahab's rational skill is being praised in his ability to locate a whale "from the simple observation of a whale" (555). The first question Ahab asks on the second and third day of the chase is "'D'ye see him?" (555, 563). On the third day it is followed immediately by "but the whale was not yet in sight."(555), which implies that Ahab is not one of those whale captains that Ishmael refers to in his musings after all. With all his experience "Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels" (555). Ahab is imposing, calculating in some respect, but above all he is consumed by feeling, and as such he is not a rational agent and never was from the outset.
So, how do you hunt a single whale? you can hunt him with maps, charts, shamans, by praying to the Sun-God or by randomly wandering in an unknown course at sea, but you will only encounter the white whale in this way if you are THAT Ahab. The critic Bulson quotes a critic that says that after reading Moby Dick "'the author clearly shows the possibility of such a search being successful'" (57). The critic missed the point: it would never be successful for any other but Ahab to have this specific encounter with the whale. Ahab's leg is in the bowels of the whale, the fates themselves have ordained this final showdown and no other captain could have possibly encountered the white whale in such a way.
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