The Name...

I once read an historical account of the pirating of a couple of merchant ships just off the coast of Vashon Island, Washington. This happened about a century ago (I really should look up the dates, or at least track down this particular account...), and the "documentation" came in the form of a piece of art: burned into and painted onto a wood panel complete with map, icons, dates, and even a few names. The author: Marshall Sohl, an amazingly-hunched-over-grandfather-and-slightly-ornery-santa-clause-of-a-man... at least that's my recollection of him... And an artist. And an historian.

Anyway, Marshall's panel told the story of two ships marauded in the middle of the night by pirates; sister ships both attacked within a week of each other, with no known survivors on either boat. The deed would have gone unpunished too, had some drunken fool of a pirate not run his mouth off one night at a local establishment on the island... loose lips and all... sober man's thoughts, drunken man's words...

Both ships sank and were never recovered, yet they've been seen sailing the Sound (around Vashon, anyway...) after dark - even by ferry passengers and workers as recently as a decade or so ago.

The sister ships' names? I only remember one: She was The Blue Wing. At least that's the story as I recall it...