The Masefield passage is very curious and interesting. with most chanty and chanty tasks I could easily imagine the chantyman starting his next solo before the end of the refrain, but not the other way round, it being essential that the men working needed to keep in time precisely.

However with a slower more continuous effort such as on a capstan this would not have been quite so essential. The old hands might well come in at a place before the end of the solo if that was the custom in that crew, expecting any others to join in pdq.