Tuesday 30 Nov 2021 11:30 BBC RADIO 4 Shaking Up the Shanty

The musical duo The Rheingans Sisters compose a contemporary sea shanty for an unusual cargo boat that has ditched diesel in favour of sails.

De Gallant borrows technology from the past to sail toward a more sustainable future and so it seems fitting that the musical duo The Rheingans Sisters should write a song that borrows from traditional shanties to create a contemporary song that sings of the boat’s progressive journey.

They set off to understand the shanty genre by speaking to Gerry Smyth, a shanty expert based at Liverpool John Moores University, but then decide to break all the rules!