I recently saw the film "In the Heart of the Sea" (i rather enjoyed it by the way despite the bad reviews) and currently reading the book it was based on. I really was surprised to learn that Moby Dick was inspired by an actual event. The thought of a whale being intelligent enough to attack/hunt a whaling mother ship seems implausible to me but perhaps I'm underestimating the intelligence of sperm whales. Was this an isolated event in history, or have their been other instances of whales being vengeful and striking back against their captors? Today it doesn't seem like whales strike back against humans and ships at all save for incidents in water parks by Orca whales.
The whaleship Ann Alexander is the only other notable "deliberate sinking" by a sperm whale, to my recollection, in 1851.
Your use of the terms 'vengeful' and 'hunt' are sort of controversial. They give the whales an agency that we are totally not agreed on. Sperm whales are without a doubt an intelligent species, but to apply our human concepts of things like revenge might be a bit misleading. At the end of it, the only accounts we have are of the whalers who survived the incident, and it's not too far to suggest that sailor stories and human recollection can border on exaggerating details. Our scientific studies of sperm whales can offer a number of explanations for the sinkings of Essex and Ann Alexander. These sort of discussions exit the realm of the historical and more into the scientific, so I'm not sure how far we can get into it before it violates AskHistorians' parameters.
Hope this helps!