"Little Boat" (Portuguese "O Barquinho") is a bossa nova song with music by Roberto Menescal and Portuguese lyrics by Ronaldo Bôscoli, written in 1961 in Brazil. The song grew out of a 1961 boat trip off Cabo Frio on the Rio de Janeiro coast, with Menescal, Bôscoli, Nara Leão, members of the Tamba Trio and friends aboard. When the engine stopped and repeated restart attempts failed, Menescal sang the sound of the engine to a rhythm to calm the group. A large vessel from Bahia passed nearby; after the group signalled it, they were rescued, and the next day Bôscoli and Menescal wrote the song from that memory. It became a symbol of bossa nova in the early 1960s and ranked 89th in Rolling Stone Brasil's 2009 list of the 100 greatest Brazilian songs. Maysa recorded the original version in 1961, on the album Barquinho, and later recordings include versions by João Gilberto and Elis Regina. Peggy Lee sang an English version, with English lyrics by Buddy Kaye, in March 1963.
