Hyde Street Pier Chantey Sing

Virtual Chantey Sing on the third Saturday of every month from 12 noon to 2 p.m. Pacific time, or the Hyde Street Pier Chantey Sing when it’s safe to sing in public again.

See the listing for San Francisco Maritime Nat’l Park Assn.

On 12/3/2023, Mordecai BenHerschel wrote on Facebook:  “In 1979 the maritime museum had lots of money and hosted the first festival of the sea. The following year the pier hosted it again with musicians and performers from other countries and other cultures. When it was over, some of the attendees said it was so much fun that they didn’t want to wait a whole year for the next one. Dave Nettle, the ranger responsible for putting it together, said we can do it every month and offered a sign up list to those interested who wanted to receive notice of the nights of the shanty scene to be held. It was not held on the same Saturday night of every month owing to other events like national holidays, so you have to be on the list of irregulars to attend. Those folks who attended the first shanty sings in the early ’80s were the Hyde Street Pier irregulars. Alice Watts made hot apple cider and cocoa, to which one could add stimulating ingredients. Since the Maritime museum was a national park, the crew’s quarters in the Thayer had berths in which interested shanty singers could bed down after returning from the Buena Vista bar and continued hilarities after many an Irish coffee. This went on until 1987, I believe, when Dave left the Park service. For me, it was the end of the golden age of the Hyde Street Pier’s shanty sings. The wonderful acoustics in the wooden walls of the Thayer’s hold could not accommodate the growing interest of the shanty singers and several years later the events were moved to the Balclutha and then the Eureka.”

Peter Kasin then wrote:  “It became a regular park program in 1981, after meeting intermittently since that first festival in 1979, when, after an impromptu sing aboard the THAYER, Mariide Widman told me that she said at the end of it as people were leaving, “Do we have to wait another year to do this again?” Dave Nettle, as noted, in 1981 became the sing’s first ranger, until 1989, then Celeste Bernardo, ’89-1992, then Revell Carr, 1992-96, then me, 1996-present.”