My name is Peter Kasin, a park ranger at San Francisco Maritime National
Historical Park. We're aboard the 1886 built square-rigged ship Balclutha built
in Glasgow to carry cargo between San Francisco and Europe. Later,
her name was changed to Star of Alaska, and she went between here and
Alaska with fishermen and cannery workers bringing back canned salmon. In between
those two careers she had a short career of three years carrying lumber to
Australia. So being a steel-hulled ship, she had a lot of life to her - a lot of
work done in those years. We are on the foredeck, and this is the capstan, an iron
winch used for weighing anchor - which was the ship's term for bringing
up the anchor - and this gave mechanical advantage for the sailors using it.
They would put these wooden capstan bars in and they would march around the capstan -
a very slow march. Imagine all the weight of the anchor, and the anchor
chain as well. So to coordinate that effort, they sang sea chanteys. One
sailor was called the chanteyman. He would lead the song, singing out
different verses and the sailors, in between each verse, would sing back to
the chantyman the chorus. The verses changed, the chorus is always the same.
I'm going to give you a short example of just a couple of verses from one. This is
called the Anglesey. The Anglesey was the name of a ship.
It was one fine day in the month of May and I was outward bound. I hadn't any
tin to pay for gin, so I walked the streets all round. My coat was out of the
elbows, and I was sore in need, so I shipped as a little sailor boy on board
of the Anglesey. Then no more I'll go to sea, across the western ocean, a-haulin'
and a-pullin' I never will again. And no more I'll go to sea, across the western
ocean, for evermore I'll stay on shore and go to sea no more. No more for me the
first look-out, no more the wheel I'll take. No more gaff top'sl tacks I'll shift, nor haul
till me back does break. No more I'll shout "All's well, sir!" nor pump away for life.
But I'll go ashore and get a wife from onboard of the Anglesey. And no more I'll
go to sea, across the western ocean, a-haulin' and a-pullin' I never will again.
Then no more I'll go to sea, across the western ocean, for evermore I'll stay on
shore and go to sea no more!