I've gone back to the books, and, it appears that the more the song was sung, the better it got. As I said previously, it's easy to follow this one through the Folk Process because the date is right in there, usually in the first line. (Serious Students of the "folk process" please take note).Sometimes I piece together my own version to (as the "self-service taylor" advised) suit myself. Boat tackles vs davit tackles who cares? My point being that "fall" in this case is a noun not a verb.
boats are carried in any of several different ways. On whalers, the whale boats were hung on davits so they could be lowered "right away". The "upside down Roman alphabet letter, J," being a very simple, very effective type of davit. The square topsail schooner, "Shenandoah" out of Vineyard Haven, Mass. carries two "Pea Pod" pulling boats, one on each side in this manner. It also carries a "Yawl Boat", with a large Deisel engine, on a different type of davit, over the stern, as a lot of ships do. The "engineless" "Shenandoah" uses this yawl boat as their own little tugboat. (as did "Bill of Rights" ) Rose, finally gave up and had two HUGE inboard diesels installed. Carrying a large pulling boat "inboard" as HMS Rose does, can be a real "Pain" when you want to put it overboard. Not for some people, though.
Donna and I worked with the "set crews" on the movie, "The Man Without a Country". "Rosie" (securelly tied up near the Goat Island causeway) was used as one of the ships in the story. They needed to do a night shot, the one where "The Hero" and Beau Bridges are strolling about the main deck mumbling something or other, but the lights of the Newport Bridge got in the way. So, I suggested (which was one of the reasons I was here) that we hang the longboat over the rail and block out the bridge lights. WELL, as I stood there, mouth wide open in wonder and amazement, the set riggers had that longboat up and over the quarterdeck's port rail in a flat 20 seconds or so. I never got that thing over the side in less than 5 minutes. AND THEY CALLED ME SUPERRIGGER . (Cliff Robertson pl;ayed "the hero", I couldn't think of his name previously) < Working on this movie set completely reversed all my previously (and stupidly) conceived opinions about Hollywood Movie Makers. I found them to actually be very hard working, conscientious, faithfull to their spouses people who started working at the crack of dawn went on as long as it was practical and then went home to their wives and families until the following "crack of dawn". In the previously described scene, Cliff Robertson was non-challantly strolling about on a very painful broken ankle which he had injured the day before (when he didn't have any scenes to do) playing tennis. In betweeen shots, he was laid out in the ships "Great cabin" with his ankle iced and grimmacing in pain. I quitly sat in the corner in case there was something I could do for him. He walked through rehersals on crutches but, of course, he couldn't use the crutches during the actuall shooting. The amazing thing about all this was that, IT WAS THE SORT OF THING THAT EVERYONE EXPECTED. I guess that this sort of situation is not uncommon among filmmakers. He never once suggested, nor did anyone else, that they delay shooting until his ankle could be properly casted by an orthopedic surgeon. He had worked that afternoon on the "gundeck scene". where it appears that he's calling out orders to the guncrews, he's actually yelling from the pain. If you ever see this movie, look carefully and you'll see one of the extras in the scene crying out loud in sympathy, with tears rolling down his face. This actually added to the scene because there was no actual dialog, the scene was shot silently and the battle noises were dubbed in. I know this extra, he's a commercial fisherman and I know he's seen pain before. Incidentally, this was not "Rose's" gun deck, it was entirely constructed in about three hours inside the gymnasium of the old "DeLasale Accademy", by the set carpenters.
I liked every single person connected with this movie. The "Art director" a woman, was in charge of designing the various studio sets, and putting in the "Canned" battle scenes, was a stickler for accuracy, which a lot of movie makers are not. She would show me a script portion and ask me what the two ships would be doing in "this situation", and then she'd get the right canned footage. I swear, by the end of my association with this movie she knew more about 19th century warship handling and ship design and rigging, than a lot of shellbacks I've known.
Donna and I were hired, originally, to construct a "for the camera", a section of standing rigging that could be hung up in a matter of minutes. I said that I only knew how to do the real thing . She said that was exactly what she required. So Donna and I drove some stakes into the ground outside the gym and rigged a tree. They furnished all the necessary "Stuff" got the deadeye blocks from the "Block Shop" in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, as I suggested, and using "polypropelyn" rope instead of Hemp, wormed,parcelled and served the "19th century" shrouds and backstays, seized in the upper deadeyes, put hooks around the lower deadeyes which we hooked onto the stakes, rigged the deadeye laniards,got the proportions right and marked, whipped the ends, seized on the iron sheer pole, took the whole thing down, moved inside the gym and stretched it out on the gymnasium deck. Then when we were told that they needed the finished set for the next day's shooting, we were prety tired, so, we called up Jimmy Cagney Jr. ( who was not connected with the movie industry at that time) a fellow folksinger and sailor, and we spent all night at the very tedious task of seizing on the ratlines. It so that we were very nearly completely exhausted. Donna would put an eye splice in the rope we were using while Jimmy and lay down on a gun carriage, then one of us would seize that end of the finished ratline to the t'gallant backstay, put in the clove hitches across to the forward main shroud, while Donna lay down on a gun carriage. Then, when we got to the main shroud, Donna would get up, measure and cut the rope, put in the other eye splice, start a new ratline and wake up the oither guy who would do the next set of seizings and clove hitches while Donna rested.
we got the job done just as the crew started showing up the next morning. Then we walked home. (For those of you who are familiar with Newport) We lived on Battery St, on the other side of town, about three blocks from the bridge and Navy base. At about "Washington Square" this dog showed up and escorted us home, mostly running ahead and showing us the way. (we were REALLY tired and sleepy) When we got to Battery street, he ran up onto the porch, sratched at the front door AND DISAPPEARED. wE thought nothing of this at the time. we went to sleep (I hope to tellyou) and when we woke up the next day, we wondered what the Hell we'd just experienced.
continued on next thread, so I don't lose this.
Jody and Donna Gibson.