Sea Quest:

[Erthona]

Billy,

Sorry, I didn't see this was back up.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wait. Tom read it in syllables, and you are writing in accentual verse, syllables only help if you are writing in meter, which you are not. So lets see. In accentual verse you only count the hard stresses.

On the gently rocking boat I stood 4
in the swells of a turquoise sea; 3
a friendship sloop with a broadened beam 4
and a cabin just for me 3

That's correct, you have written the equivalent of ballad meter in accentual verse. It only need rhyme on lines 2 and 4.

However in the next stanza this line is a foot too long

"a breezy sail, the west wind's tail"

And while the form allows you to rhyme on 1 and 3, you probably want to try and be consistent.

So if you are not going to rhyme 1 and 3 in stanza one, you should probably stick with that. There are times when one can break that rule, but this probably isn't one of those times.

So redo the rest of the poem, and lets have a look see. K?

Dale

PS PM me so I will know when you put something up.