Doerflinger took down this song from Frank Vickery, of the Avon Queen, who used the same tune in Off to Sea Once More. "Mr. Vickery said there were many more stanzas." A few lines are quoted in Bill Adams's Ships and Women, 1936.

Table Bay is the harbor of Cape Town, South Africa. The Line is the Equator, and a ceremony was often held for a sailor's first crossing.