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There's a noble fleet of whalers a-sailing from Dundee,
Manned by British sailors to take them o'er the sea;
On a western ocean passage we started on the trip,
We flew along just like a song in our gallant whaling ship.
For the wind was on her quarter and the engine's working free.
There's not another whaler that sails the Arctic Sea,
Can beat the Old Polina, you need not try, my sons,
For we challenged all both great and small from Dundee to St. John's.
'Twas the second Sunday morning, just after leaving port,
We met a heavy Sou'west gale that washed away our boat;
It washed away our quarterdeck, our stanchions just as well,
And so we sent the whole shebang a-floating in the gale.
Art Jackson set his canvas, Fairweather got up steam,
But Captain Guy, the daring boy, came plunging through the stream;
And Mullins in the Husky tried to beat the blooming lot,
But to beat the Old Polina was something he could not.
For the wind was on her quarter and the engine's working free.
There's not another whaler that sails the Arctic Sea,
Can beat the Old Polina, you need not try, my sons,
For we challenged all both great and small from Dundee to St. John's.
There's the noble Terra Nova, a model without doubt.
The Arctic and Aurora they talk so much about;
Art Jackman's model mailboat, the terror of the sea,
Tried to beat the Old Polina on a passage from Dundee.
For the wind was on her quarter and the engine's working free.
There's not another whaler that sails the Arctic Sea,
Can beat the Old Polina, you need not try, my sons,
For we challenged all both great and small from Dundee to St. John's.
And now we're back in old St. John's where rum is very cheap,
So we'll drink a health to Captain Guy who brought us o'er the deep;
A health to all our sweethearts and to our wives so fair,
Not another ship could make the trip but the Polina I declare.
For the wind was on her quarter and the engine's working free.
There's not another whaler that sails the Arctic Sea,
Can beat the Old Polina, you need not try, my sons,
For we challenged all both great and small from Dundee to St. John's.
Published in Gerald S. Doyle's Old-Time Songs And Poetry Of Newfoundland: Songs Of The People From The Days Of Our Forefathers (Third edition, pp.44-45, 1955). Also published on pp.13-14 of Songs Of Newfoundland, a complimentary booklet of lyrics to twenty-one songs distributed by the Bennett Brewing Co. Ltd., of St. John's, NL, with the cooperation of the Gerald S. Doyle Song Book from which the words were obtained. A very similar variant was also recorded by Great Big Sea as Old Polina (The Hard And The Easy, 2005)
Note: Written in the 1880's. Polina is probably a corruption of Polynia, the name of a whaler lost in the Straits of Belle Isle in March, 1884.
