Thanks for the comments so far. Tim, my feelings exactly! From my limited experience, on a 250 ton barquentine, one of the major reasons for not using shantys for working is that synthetic sails being so much lighter than canvas does not lead to a long enough or hard enough job to really get into the rhythm. Singing shanties to the trainees however went down very well. Funnily enough the one that seemed to get the most appreciation was Hanging Jonny, rather than drink or sex based, so perhaps Tim's and my gut reaction was wrong.

Barry, Chinese Bumboat is one of my personal favourites, I would love to get to Mystic myself one day but probably never will, so thanks for the info. I agree that one of the problems with collecting from "traditional" sources is that the people involved impose, as we do, self regulation both out of concern for the presumed sensibilities of the collector, and because in many cases (the hunting songs of the NW England have been quoted as an example in another thread) the songs are private to the "in group" of the singer.

Pete M.

Pete M