History There is a good chance you have heard Andy sing The Mollymauk in the bar of the Ancient Mariner, the Lynmouth pub that is the spiritual home of the Shanty Crew, and come away certain it was very old. That haunting, circling tune, the talk of Cape Horn and the ghosts of drowned men — it has the weight of something handed down through generations of forecastle singers. It is not. The Mollymauk was written in 1987. Its author, Bob Watson, set out to capture the vastness

The story behind Skinny Lister's "13 Miles", the folk-punk shanty telling of the Louisa lifeboat's overland launch in 1899 — plus the full lyrics, reproduced with the band's kind permission.

The Story Behind the Song On the night of 12 January 1899, the Lynmouth lifeboat crew faced a rescue no ordinary launch could manage. With the harbour flooded and the sea unreachable, Coxswain Dave Crowcombe made the call that would define the night: haul the Louisa thirteen miles overland to Porlock Weir instead, and launch her from there. What followed was one of the most extraordinary nights in RNLI history — and the reason we still sing about it today. Louisa is the Crew'

About the Song We often open a set with this traditional Scottish whaling song, as its always good to get the crowd going. The song itself dates back to the early 19th century, and tells the story of the whaling ship Diamond, which sailed from the port of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. The ship, captained by John Gravill, was part of the Arctic whaling fleet that ventured to the Greenland whaling grounds. The song reflects the pride and hope of the sailors and their families as

It seems oddly fitting to start a series of blogs on our songbook with the song we usually sing last.