Black and grey traditional flash design of an anchor wrapped in rope, with a Sink or Swim banner and flowers, printed on cream fabric with no body part shown.

Anchor with Sink or Swim banner

Traditional · Black and grey · Flash

A traditional-style anchor design with a coiled rope wrapped around the shank, a banner reading SINK OR SWIM across the crown and an OR label above. Two flowers or rosettes sit beside the crown and below the arms, and the banner ends curl outward. Bold black linework with hatched shading on the banner and anchor, printed in black on a cream textile against a wicker background.

Traditional Anchor Rope Banner Flower Rosette

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Your father's knot is still on the bollard at the end of the quay, Tom, and I have not had the heart to untie it. Mr Pell from the chandlery says the tide will work it loose by spring, and I told him to mind his own bollards. You will laugh at that. You always said I would tie a fish to the mast if I thought it would hold.

Keep reading

The Marigold came in on Tuesday with her rail stove in and nobody hurt, which the harbourmaster called a miracle and I called plain seamanship. Captain Brisk kept asking after you. He says the bo'sun wanted to know whether the new boy could splice, and I told him you could splice in your sleep and once did, on the Lerwick ferry, and he laughed until he had to sit down on a coil of hawser.

Sink or swim, the old men say, but your father never believed it. He said a man ties himself to a thing so it cannot drift, and then he learns to swim the way anyone does, cold and furious and with his mouth full of brine. I have enclosed the little shell he kept in his coat pocket. Wear it where the wind cannot take it.

If the Gannet is not in by the next full moon, do not come home ashamed of the sea. Come home with your hands raw from rope and tell me the story properly, the way you always did, with the wrong bits left in and the right bits made larger. Your loving mother, Ada.