The version as it is usually sung is not particularly long, unless you're not into singing choruses which would make it seem long I suppose. The folk process has been at work on what was originally a poem, and made it into something that fishermen from all over love to sing, and which they can and do relate to.

Dead Horse, I doubt that you're a fisherman, and therefore might find that difficult to understand, and therefore to you it may seem no better than other broadsides - and indeed it may not be, but it obviously strikes a chord with many. I see no particular virtue in its age or that of other broadsides - in this situation, its age is irrelevant.

Barbara