How Dangerous was Whaling?

In Moby Dick he writes 'upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each lost a boat’s crew' A boat had about 30 sailors so this would be at least 1 out of 30 on 27 boats and 6 out of 30 on 3. So 27+18=45 out of 900 or 5%. 

 Comparing that to Astronauts. 574 people have gone into space. 31 Astronauts have died. Including training/testing accidents. Which is 5.4% Though those astronauts died on some journey not just one. On this one data comparison whaling was as dangerous as being an astronaut.

 
The journeys were of 3 to 4 years. With very little if any visiting of ports involved. Which is longer than Mars journeys are projected to be.