Steve: "Your own translation might be more helpful..."

I don't speak twenty-eleven languages like Burton so, I doubt it. Look at how different the Latin-English academic translations of Polybius are (above,) each one by the 'expert' linguist neither you nor I are.

Sooo, fwiw, I would agree about the pirate opera but then, it's 16th and 19th century poetry and not naval science. I wouldn't expect dry nonfiction either.

Fwiw: the original looks more like "weighing anchor(s) with the customary grita." No mention of specific ergata.