South Street Seaport Museum's monthly sea-music programme Sea Chanteys and Maritime Music is set to continue virtually, featuring members of the New York Packet and friends. Listen in, lead or request a song, sing along with the choruses with Virtual Chantey Sing on Sunday, July 5, 2020, from 2 pm-4 pm.
Sign up in this link to receive the Zoom link 24 hours prior to the free event: http://events.constantcontact.
Old-time sailors on long voyages spent months living together in close quarters with no outside entertainment, no new people to interact with, a monotonous diet, and each day pretty much just like the day before.
Sound familiar? How did they keep their spirits up? Singing together! Work songs and fun songs, story songs and nonsense songs, songs of nostalgia and songs of up-to-the-moment news - all were part of the repertoire onboard.
The New York Packet was established over 30 years ago as the official maritime singing group of South Street Seaport Museum. First singing on the iconic vessel Peking, they have endeavoured ever since to keep chantey singing alive in lower Manhattan.
Even when the Seaport encountered ‘heavy weather’ during and after Hurricane Sandy, the Packet found places to fill with sound while awaiting a return to their beloved ships at the Seaport. In May of 2019, the moment came when the Packet could return and sing aboard Wavertree. It was a magical and welcome moment.