Thank you to all responders. Looks like G is the most popular key for Sailor's. When I started this thread I said it fell under the fingers easily in F. I would like to add that it falls under the bow well in F also. I used to play it in G, but didn't like the way the second half of the A and B part had to be bowed. Either there would be four notes on a bow stroke with lots of crossovers, or a variable number of notes with fewer crossovers. In F, you can mostly get two notes per bow stroke, with minimal crossover, which phrases best to my ear. One down side to F is that it is generally a jam buster. Too bad. It's a great key. Good for singing too.

Al