Coil The Hawser reel

From the playing of John Rea. I have not come across this tune anywhere else - another of John Rea’s unique tunes.

The late Shetland fiddler Gibbie Hutchison recorded a setting of this on his 1999 album Shetland Springs. He called it “Coil Awa‘ da Hawser” and says that it “relates to seafaring, ’hawser’ is a name given to a rope, as in coil away the rope [and] there are some words to the tune describing this.”

X:2 is a setting I got from another Shetland fiddler whose name escapes me.

The tune is good. What does “Coil The Hawser” mean please?

Coil the rope.

Hawser is ship’s anchor cable before advent of anchor chain so is a thick rope several hundred feet long and as thick as your arm or more so it was hard work coiling it.
Nice tune.

A hawser is actually the very thick mooring rope that feeds through the hawse-hole at the hawse, which is at the top of the bow. On large ship they are far, far, thicker than your arm. An anchor cable is different thing, at least nowadays.