Butcher Island Hearth-Carrier

Found only in the harbours of the wealthiest settlements across the Butcher Isles, the Hearth-Carrier often forms the backbone of a town's economy. Crafted specifically to weather the frozen conditions North of the Butcher Isles, and designed in the islands' inimitable style, a Hearth-Carrier is a striking vessel, though one rarely seen by foreigners.
At over 100ft long, and nearly 30ft in beam, Hearth-Carriers are some of the largest seagoing vessels in Midara. Their hulls are constructed from scarce, precious wood, reinforced and supplemented with treated bones and hide patches. Leather is used to form a canopy covering the hull, and traditionally also to make the sails that hang from the Hearth-Carrier's twin masts, though most Butcher Islanders now use imported linen. The component that gives these vessels their name is the stone hearth, deep in the bowels of the ship. This provides the heat vital for crewmen to survive the journey to the frigid north.
Hearth-Carriers are hunting ships, and alongside the usual stores of fresh water and rations, are loaded with stores of salt, barbed iron harpoons and small, two-person canoes crafted from bones and tanned leather. Once a Hearth-Carrier has reached its hunting ground amidst the ice floes of the North, fishermen peel off in these two-person canoes to hunt the great, blubbery creatures that make their home in these frigid waters. Once one of these beasts is brought back to the Hearth-Carrier, it is quickly carved apart, the choicest organs preserved in sea-ice and the meat in salt, and the blubber that remains is either stored in casks or eaten then and there.
The return of a Hearth-Carrier to its home town is the prompt for a grand celebration, during which the brave fishers are treated as near-royalty. It is during these feasts that the ice-packed organs are consumed, raw and bloody.