Skeppet Bernadotte (The Ship Bernadotte)

We sailed away to Cardiff town,
From there to Bahia we were bound,
In Cardiff we lost our fine Old Man,
And Hard-tack Hans we got, got, got.

Repeat last two lines in each verse as chorus

With a following wind we steered away,
The t'gallants blew out the folloiwng day,
They boom and they shook, made a dreadful kicking,
In that very old piece of loot, loot, loot.

Being what it is- the windmill pump,
Would neither go, nor suck a drop,
Yes, for it to work it must blow a hurricane,
And so we pumped out eighteen inches - water, water, water.

One week of this soon got us down,
"The bread's nearly gone," said Hard-tack Hans,
Twelve packets were made - one for each man,
To whack out the bread till we came to land, land, land.

English translation
From Songs of the Sea by Stan Hugill (1977)