Listen to the track:
The Lost Launch
In January 1806, the launch of HMS Hibernia was overwhelmed in a storm off Wembury while trying to weather the Mewstone. It struck the Rennie Rocks and capsized. A midshipman and 23 seamen drowned; 19 survived. Seventeen bodies were recovered and buried together in Wembury churchyard.
Verse 1
The wind came down in January, iron cold and wild,
Sixteen into seventeen, the sea was black and riled,
A launch from Hibernia, stores stacked high and tight,
Cast off into the weather at the turning of the night.
Verse 2
An officer at the tiller and a midshipman so young,
And forty three seamen where the storm tide struck and swung,
They meant to reach Hibernia, meant to bring the boat back in,
But the gale took hold like judgement and the sea grew hard as sin.
Chorus
So roll, boys, roll, boys, roll through the spray,
Past the Mewstone in the darkness, pray we see the day,
Rennie Rocks are waiting where the bitter waters play,
And the sea will take her payment when the daylight slips away.
Verse 3
They couldn’t weather Mewstone, so they bore away in fear,
A narrow run for shelter but the reef was drawing near,
Between the rocks and mainland where the white water runs,
The launch struck hard, she lifted, then she went beneath the guns.
Verse 4
Nineteen men washed living, and they staggered to the shore,
But the midshipman and twenty three were taken by the roar,
Some had lived through last year’s wreck off Berry Head’s hard stone,
Only for Wembury’s waters to claim them as her own.
Bridge
Two men clung to a jagged rock, hands cut raw with cold,
One leg smashed and useless, one brave soul to hold,
They waited for the morning like a prayer that won’t be heard,
One lived to see the quarrymen,
One died without a word.
Final Chorus
So roll, boys, roll, boys, roll through the spray,
Past the Mewstone in the darkness, pray we see the day,
Rennie Rocks are waiting where the bitter waters churn,
Hibernia sailed onward, but the launch did not return.
Outro
Roll boys, roll boys, let the cold tide call,
Seventeen laid in Wembury yard,
And the sea has had them all