When blubber was taken back to the home port for processing, as it was at Peterhead and other British ports, it was packed into barrels for the journey.

The holds were stacked with several layers of large and heavy barrels. Moving these around to allow them to be filled in the correct sequence must have been a complex three-dimensional problem, one to be solved in exceedingly unpleasant working conditions. The man with this heavy responsibility was the skeeman, or hold officer.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Whaling bark