LYR ADD: Good Old Brig

25 Jun 98 - 09:04 PM (#31424)
Subject: LYR ADD: Good Old Brig
From: Barry Finn

This comes from George Herbert, from West Geelong, master rigger & one of the last of the old square rigged sailor's. Last heard from George around a yr ago, don't know if he's still around, he's hitting his mid-high 90's bout now.

From London to Denmark, we shipped aboard a brig
Her timbers all were holy & pulp it was her rig

Ch: Soi let the breezes blow, she's old & slow
We'll float across to Hamburg & surk & lay below

The for's'l was all torn, we hadn't any thread
We grabbed the skipper's pants & hoisted them instead

We hadn't got a compass, we knew are way by smell
And if we went off course the skipper would ring a bell

We hadn't got a lantern, to see us through the dark
The skipper's nose was bright enough to scare off any shark

The wheelhouse it was rotten, it made the rats amused
The only thing we had to spin was granny's spinning wheel

We should've sighted Hamburg a week ago it seems
When the lookout shouted out, he just sighted Barbary

So we got ourselves a tugboat & towed that brig astern
And if we reach Hamburg someday we will return

Hugill's version (in his Songs Of The Sea) isn't quite the same, different structure & I think a different (maybe slightly) tune, I do belive it comes from the same area & trade as Hugill's, I think George was in the Baltic trades before becoming a Cape Horner. To tow a ship of that size from astern would be pretty much impossible without a cutaway at the aft end of the keel or in the rudder (where a prop would be in a more recent vessel), to give steerage & control. Again, sorry I can't do tunes. Barry

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