South Australia’s a right fine place / Heave away, Haul away / To get blind drunk is no disgrace / And we’re bound for South Australia.
A proper sea shanty. Shanties varied with the job in hand, and this one would work well for halyards. Its robust 4/4 rhythm lends itself to a team of sailors pulling steadily in time to hoist a square topsail yard and stretch out the canvas into an aerofoil. On a clipper ship driven by single topsails with reef points, this was a long, hard pull. On a later ship with split topsails, it was only half the length, but a tune to the shout still made all the difference.
Back in the early 1980s, ‘South Australia’ was a favourite among our crowd in the Caribbean when sundowners dragged on late into the evening was shantied up to a full hoist. By then, she was unique in maintaining this tradition but it worked as it always had, and people loved it.
