Great sleuthing, Gibb.

At Mystic in 1988 he sang "Santa Anna" with what I thought was an odd rhythm in the solos:

"We're sailing down the river FROM (slight pause) Liverpool!...
Round Cape Horn TO (slight pause) Frisco Bay!..."

Maybe it was a latter-day affectation, maybe not.

I'm too musically illiterate to say if that's syncopation, but ISTR that in one of his books he mentions rather offhandedly that some chanteymen sometimes syncopated their solos.