The first verse is a nod to the bible story where the Apostles are in a boat and Jesus is sleeping below deck. A heavy storm whips up and the Apostles fear for their lives, lose faith in Jesus, and basically yell at him for sleeping while everyone else is nearly drowning. He wakes up, tells the sea to be quiet--and it does--and then chastises the Apostles for having little faith.
The song takes this imagery and then applies it to the narrator's own life as a boat in a stormy sea.
The verse about "one shot" and "this gun my only mate" I think is a metaphor. Taken literally, he has one gun with one shot--presumably a shot to the head as his last resort escape from the stormy sea. The double meaning could be that his one "shot" (his one chance) is trusting in Jesus, and the "gun" his "only mate" at his side is Jesus at his side (Jesus being the deliverer of his chance/The gun being the deliverer of the bullet).
Later in the song, the seas get very rough, he tries to turn around, the engine dies, and his boat capsizes. The metaphor being that he hit a real rough patch in his life. Presumably he had gone forward in his life without Jesus initially and failed miserably--as Jesus had said he would--and now the refrain makes sense in that he has decided to give the helm of the ship (his life) over to Jesus.
The first verse is a nod to the bible story where the Apostles are in a boat and Jesus is sleeping below deck. A heavy storm whips up and the Apostles fear for their lives, lose faith in Jesus, and basically yell at him for sleeping while everyone else is nearly drowning. He wakes up, tells the sea to be quiet--and it does--and then chastises the Apostles for having little faith.
The song takes this imagery and then applies it to the narrator's own life as a boat in a stormy sea. The verse about "one shot" and "this gun my only mate" I think is a metaphor. Taken literally, he has one gun with one shot--presumably a shot to the head as his last resort escape from the stormy sea. The double meaning could be that his one "shot" (his one chance) is trusting in Jesus, and the "gun" his "only mate" at his side is Jesus at his side (Jesus being the deliverer of his chance/The gun being the deliverer of the bullet). Later in the song, the seas get very rough, he tries to turn around, the engine dies, and his boat capsizes. The metaphor being that he hit a real rough patch in his life. Presumably he had gone forward in his life without Jesus initially and failed miserably--as Jesus had said he would--and now the refrain makes sense in that he has decided to give the helm of the ship (his life) over to Jesus.
By the way, a freebooter is a pirate
By the way, a freebooter is a pirate