Canso Strait

DESCRIPTION: The crew is finishing a quiet voyage when a gale blows up. The drunken captain decides to take advantage of the storm by getting up the best speed possible. The alarmed sailors at last mutiny to get things back in control
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Creighton-NovaScotia)
KEYWORDS: sailor ship drink storm rebellion
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 183-184, "Canso Strait" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 871-872, "The Drunken Captain" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast 40, "The Drunken Captain" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou 31, "The Drunken Captain" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SongsAndBalladsFromNovaScotia 107, "Canso Strait" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-MaritimeFolkSongs, p. 194, "In Canso Strait" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland, pp. 170-171,244-245, "The Drunken Captain" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, CNSOSTRT*
Roud #1815
RECORDINGS:
Everett Bennett, "The Drunken Captain" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Martin Reddigan, "The Drunken Captain" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
Ned Rice, "The Drunken Captain" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
Dermot Roche, "The Drunken Captain" (on ITMA/CapeShoreNL)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Drunken Captain (I)" (subject)
NOTES [272 words]: This song, erroneously titled "Casno Strait," is item dD52 in Laws's Appendix II.
Manny and Wilson, in their notes on "The Cedar Grove" [Laws D18] say that Canso Strait "was between Nova Scotia and the Island of Cape Breton. Now, by the magic of modern engineering, there is no strait, but a causeway has been built to connect the island and the mainland."
Stories like this can happen in other places, though. Benson Bobrick, Master of War: The Life of General George H. Thomas, Simon & Schuster, 2009, p. 75, tells a story of the famous Civil War general George H. Thomas, in the period before the war: "On one of his shuttles up from Charleston to New York for recruiting duty... he saved the ship and all on board from the besotted orders of a drunken captain in a violent storm. As the ship plunged and lurched in the tumultuous waves off Cape Hatteras, the first made came to him and appealed for help. Thomas confined the captain to his stateroom, assumed overall responsibility for the ship, and with the first mate (who might otherwise have been charged with mutiny) rode out the storm."
I should add that Bobrick does not cite a source for this tale.
Marc Milner, Canada's Navy: The First Century, University of Toronto Press, 1999, pp. 91-92, mentions accounts of skippers of Canadian corvettes in World War II with drunken captains -- a real problem, given that the crews of corvettes were often so hastily assembled that only the captain could navigate the ship; the junior officers had no navigation training. And these officers often served in the vicinity of Canso. But this was after this song originated. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: Doe183

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