They feed with a variety of methods, the most bizarre being to bite large chunks out of the body of marine fish and mammals, usually weak or injured animals. Often fish caught on long lines, where the fish may be dangling for some time, will get Cookie cutter bites.

Their method of attack is to latch onto the under surface of their prey using highly specialised suctorial lips. The bottom of their mouth houses a series of saw-like teeth arranged in an arc. While sucking onto the surface with the upper mouth, they bite into the flesh with the bottom jaw. Then, with a twisting motion, they swivel around and complete a circular plug, that is pulled away, cradled in the scoop-like lower jaw, while held by the hook-like upper teeth. Thus, leaving a plug-like hole in the body of the victim. 

The name Cookie Cutter derives from the similarity of the wound to the old-fashioned method of biscuit making using a round tin device to cut out biscuits – leaving circular shapes in the rolled pastry.

”I was taken on board the Governor Halkett of Sydney, and at Howe’s Island joined the American whaler Benezet of Fairhaven.”

When Borritt handed his note to the judge at his Old Bailey trial in February 1852, it stated that: “I and two of my companions then embarked on board a whaler, leaving our companions behind.” Borritt never specified where he joined the Halkett. She was a whaler under Captain Joseph Bradley, out from its home port of Sydney since 31st January 1840.

This was almost four months before Borritt had even arrived on Norfolk Island. The length of a whaling voyage was determined by the success of the hunt, balanced against the determination of the master and his ability to keep a crew. What is clear is that some of Borritt’s group chose to remain [on Rotuma], implying levels of comfort, confidence and choice about which vessel they might take. The Rotuma Islands [where he and his companions had spent several days after surviving a murderous rampage by a runaway convict] would have fulfilled these criteria. Being as they were escaped convicts, joining the Halkett could result in finding themselves on Sydney’s streets as ‘wanted’ men. 

Nevertheless Borritt and company were, it seems, sufficiently rested and keen to move on. At some point they would find another ship. It was the last occasion where Borritt refers to the other fugitives.

By curious chance we can state, with good evidence, precisely where Borritt was on the night of 24th March 1842. From the Sydney Herald for the 6th June, under the banner:

Howe’s Island Shipping: We have been favoured by Captain Poole with the following shipping intelligence… since January 8, 1842.

Poole had recently set up a provisions station on Lord Howe’s Island, situated about halfway between Sydney and Norfolk Island.

The whaling barque Governor Halkett, of Sydney, out twenty-six months, 900 barrels of sperm oil, Bradley, master, arrived on the 24th and sailed on the 25th March, 1842.

Crucially for this element of Borritt’s story the article also reported:

The barque Benezet, Parker, master, returned to the island on the 22nd March, and sailed 25th March, 1842.

As Borritt’s recent companions had probably feared, Captain Bradley had decided to head for home. Borritt would have been delighted to find the American whaler Benezet at anchor on arrival. He, no doubt, presented himself as an experienced seaman (and now whaler) to Captain Parker; with the prospect of an eventual voyage to her home port of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. In 1840 the United States of America existed westward only to the central plains; its ports all lay on the Atlantic coast. She had been out since December of that year.
Borritt’s professional seamanship, and recent whaleboat experience in the dangerous seas about Norfolk Island (and beyond) would have been an asset.

One of Borritt’s new American crew-mates was a young man about ten years his junior named George Runels. Decades later Runels wrote his life story, including details of the ‘whaling days’ of his youth.

On sighting a whale several boats would be deployed and the pursuit commenced; the object being to lance the beast from each boat and thereby slow the giant before the kill. Of course this was a perilous exercise for all concerned. Runels described one encounter during a hunt off Norfolk Island itself. A ship-mate having struck the animal, his boat was capsized; the man clinging on grimly – 

the line had got a turn around his legs and took him down as near as we could judge, fully twenty fathoms and nothing but the whale’s rising to the surface saved him… it was three weeks before he could do anything… he was a Kanaker, and like a duck in water. The whale made 70 barrels of oil, about $3,000.