Advice sought from a landlubbing Mudcatter who likes canal songs!

I have come across the word "bowline" in a couple of Erie Canal songs (A Trip on the Erie, The E-ri-o Canal). Yankee John Galusha, the only "source singer" I've heard pronounce the word, says it as "bo-line", but I understand that it would ordinarily be pronounced "bo-lin" on sailing ships. Galusha was not a sailor himself, so that could explain things if his is a mispronunciation. BUT, wouldn't a canal boat (19th cent) be more likely to have a bow line (two words, opposite of stern line) than a bowline? They didn't have sails for the most part.

The specific line from "The E-ri-o Canal" is: "Haul in your bowline boys, stand by you sorrel mule, low bridge duck your head don't stand there like a fool"