Tow Rope Girls lyrics

There’s a ship in the tropics, rolling along,
With every stitch drawing, the trade blowin’ strong,
Oh the white caps around her, Breaking in spray,
Those girls have got hold of our tow-rope today!

Chorus

Haul away, girls, steady and true,
Polly and Dolly and Sally and Sue,
Mothers and sisters – sweethearts and all,
It’s haul away, all the way, haul away, haul away girls.

She’s logging sixteen as she speeds from the south,
With the wind in her royals, with a bone in her mouth,
With a wake like a mill-race she speeds on her way,
Those girls have got hold of our tow-rope today! (Chorus)

Of cargoes and charters we’ve had our full share,
Of grain and of lumber – enough and to spare.
Of nitrates at Taltal and rice for Bombay,
Those girls have got hold of our tow-rope today! (Chorus)

Can’t you hear the good trade winds singing aloud, 
A homeward bound shanty in the sheets and the shroud,
Hear how she whistles in the halyards and stays,
Those girls have got hold of our tow-rope today!” (Chorus)

But it’s oh, for the chops of the channel at last,
The cheer that goes up when the tug hawser's passed,
The mate’s “that’ll do” and fourteen months’ pay,
For the girls have got hold of our tow-rope today! (Chorus x2)