Thanks for the transcription, Lighter! Great work.

Perhaps most of the Caribbean examples of shantying have that sort of repetition -- at least the one recorded by Lomax. I believe one of the contributing factors is that the individuals had "forgotten" how to sing shanties. Just an opinion, which I might be able to support with more evidence... But in general I am suggesting that this trait isn't necessarily indicative of the way things were done 60+ years earlier (not that you said it was).

I guess another way to phrase this would be to say that the existence of only 1 or a few (or zero) "regulation" verses can be read different ways, as 1) the start of a stream of completely unstable, varying text or 2) as a narrow set of verses that get repeated a lot.

Since we have (written) examples from a much earlier period that show #1, then #2 in the Lomax's recordings might be interpreted as either a Caribbean-specific style or as a change from former custom.