Perhaps the very riskiness of the undertaking added to its enjoyment.
"The School by the Sea"
Angela Brazil
Like its relative the leviathan, of fifty or sixty feet in length, which boasts of a mouth big enough to hold a jollyboat and crew, who would doubtless find their quarters exceedingly uncomfortable on account of the forest of whalebone hanging down from the roof, the white whale cannot keep under water long without coming up to breathe; but the one Johannes had so cleverly struck nearly carried out the whole of the line, which Steve watched darting out ring by ring over the bows, till, in spite of the riskiness of the proceeding, the second Norseman seized the end which lay outside the tub, and gave it a hitch round a block in the bows left for the purpose.
"Steve Young"
George Manville Fenn