Burl and Will. Many thanks as always. Keep enjoying.

Chris. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. I wouldn't be the least surprised if there were other LPs of shanties recorded aboard ship. However, as far as I know it is the recording where the shanties were used to accompany/co-ordinate work aboard ship in the time honoured manner.

That, to my mind, does not make the performances 100% reliable; the crew of the Unicorn was probably fitter, better fed, better clad, better motivated, and using lighter materials than would have been the case with their forebears. And the recording was presumably done in better weather than would have been encountered round Cape Horn. Even so, the LP is probably the best guide we have as to what shanties sounded like in their natural environment.

BTW., if anyone tried to log onto Worlds of Trad yesterday, and couldn't, my apologies. For some strange reason some of the tracks went out of sequence and I spent several infuriating hours taking the programme down and then putting it back up again *****. (expletive deleted.)