Shaking up the Shanty

The musical duo The Rheingans Sisters compose a contemporary sea shanty for an unusual cargo boat that has ditched diesel in favour of sails. Take a look around your home, and it’s likely that 90% of what you’ll see has spent some time on a cargo boat. The shipping industry is massive, and so is its impact on the environment and the climate. But onboard De Gallant, things are different. This boat transports fair trade cargo around the world on wind power alone. In some ways, this boat is old fashioned – its glossy wooden hull and seven sails are reminiscent of a pirate ship – but on the other hand, the boat offers a progressive, climate-conscious alternative to commercial shipping. De Gallant borrows technology from the past to sail toward a more sustainable future and so it seems fitting that the musical duo The Rheingans Sisters should write a song that borrows from traditional shanties to create a contemporary song that sings of the boat’s progressive journey. They set off to understand the shanty genre by speaking to Gerry Smyth, a shanty expert based at Liverpool John Moores University, but then decide to break all the rules! As the boat makes its way from the Caribbean and then around Europe, Rowan and Anna Rheingans must find creative ways to collaborate and exchange ideas with the boat and each other, using what they have to navigate obstacles thrown up by Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. In true shanty tradition, the sisters create musical bricolage that borrows lines of dialogue from De Gallant’s crew, and melodies, rhythms, instruments and lyrics from a whole range of sources. Produced by Claire Crofton Additional recording by Louise Cognard A Boom Shakalaka production for BBC Radio 4