How does the Pequod meet its destruction in Moby-Dick?

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In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, the destruction of the whaling vessel Pequod occurs after a violent, three-day engagement with the white whale, Moby Dick.1

Driven by Captain Ahab’s monomaniacal obsession to kill the whale that had previously cost him his leg, the ship and its crew are ultimately overwhelmed by the beast. The whale destroys the Pequod, resulting in the deaths of everyone on board except for the narrator, Ishmael. Ishmael survives the catastrophe by floating on a coffin that had been built for his friend Queequeg, eventually being rescued by another ship, the Rachel.21