For me, the chorus is beautiful and I do appreciate having that "other more sensible" last verse to sing, although why he suddenly thought they could have saved her is not at all clear... perhaps the captain didn't have that much fight in him anymore... one of the good shipwreck songs that talks to this desire to not really live on after a ship you love founders is Stan Rogers' version of "The Jeannie C" ... but at least even though he never knows what they struck, it's not relevant to the fact that the timbers were totally shivered and all the seams coming uncaulked. Kind of a miracle two of them made it out of that, too. Anyway, the chorus is beautiful, and the idea that he'd rather save the crew than have them die trying to save the ship... that said, it would be nice to maybe have a *liferaft* or two aboard, cap!