Folks are trying to piece this song together on a separate thread. I've got most of the words together, except for the first verse, from a tape I made last weekend at Mystic. Be nice if someone could identify who composed this fine song, and fill in the missing verse:

ALL ABOARD THE SPRAY
(Anon. As sung by The Ancient Mariners at the 2002 Mystic Sea Music Festival)


Chorus:

All aboard the Spray–(All alone I sailed),
All alone I sailed, all those lovely days;
I did set sail, (I did prevail),
I, did regale myself, a-round this world,
All a-round this world.

Then I was a youth, a-workin' in the food shops,
Listinin' to the fishermen lying up a shame,
Or tellin' me the truth, regaling me with tall tales;
I couldn't tell the difference; it was all the same. (CHO)

Then I was a captain, wrecked in Anontina*,
Shipping jungle lumber in the trading game;
I built an open boat, and sailed it back to Boston,
And then my wife and boys they would never be the same. (CHO)

Back in Massachusetts, given an old orchard boat,
We rebuilt her plank for plank, the oceans for to tame;
We thought she was a sloop or any other wide-eyed swan,
Once I stepped aboard the Spray I would never be the same. (CHO)

Now I am an old man, settled on a manger,
Livin' on a farm and fading with my fame;
I dream of Venezuela, Orinoco River,
Of sailing to the source or I'll never be the same. (CHO)

* Doesn't sound like that on the tape but that's the small harbor where Slocum wrecked his ship the Aquidneck in 1887 on a sandbar, near Rio, Brazil.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

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Also see Fred Moore's SLOCUM AND THE SPRAY