Back in my rent-a-doc days, I spent two weeks in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which is on Cape Ann. I had this song running through my head the whole time. Here's what Gordon has to say about the song, in his Folk-Legacy songbook, Time and the Flying Snow:

"Part of this story happened to me on a little schooner quite a few years ago. When a similar thing happened to a friend of mine on a fishing vessel, I figured it was worth mixing the two stories together into a formal gripe. The names are changed and some details omitted to protect the families of the guilty."

Aloha,
Mark

PS For those who are interested in such things, Gloucester was the home port of the Andrea Gail, subject of the book and movie, The Perfect Storm.