Fiction kills. This Conchy has heaved one too many waterlogged corpse over the gunwale to be neutral on the subject of maritime reenactors. RIP De Gallant and two crew for our most recent Lucayan go-round.

Hugill's career was split almost equally between the merchant marine (work song… mayhaps) and the nautical equivalent of summer/holiday camp (parlor song… but spice up the race, risque, entendre &c.)

He was freshly retired from the latter when he published in the 1970s. His target demographic at the time was the Outward Bound student/camper type.

By the numbers… Hugill, as song collector, had zero impact on the post 1970s working maritimes. As a naval historian, he was a lot worse than “bad.” The quality and accuracy of his reenactment, reproduction, demonstration, teaching songs for Outward Bound is debatable. For that schoolboy, dress up and sing like a pirate, Sailortown fun of it all, Stan Hugill was better than “good.”