Try pot

A try pot is a large pot used to remove and render the oil from blubber obtained from cetaceans (whales and dolphins) and pinnipeds (seals), and also to extract oil from penguins.

Once a suitable animal such as a whale had been caught and killed, the blubber was stripped from the carcass in a process known as flensing, cut into pieces, and melted in the try pots to extract the oil.

[1] Later, though, whaling vessels frequently included a trywork, a brick furnace and set of try pots built into the deck.

In the 18th- and 19th-century New England whaling industry, the use of the trywork allowed ships to stay at sea longer and boil out their oil.

[2] The use of an onboard trywork was the major technological innovation that enabled the success of the Yankee whaling industry.