Traditional flash drawing of a three-masted sailing ship with grey sails and a red pennant, set in a rope oval with grey clouds, a red sun and blue waves.

Sailing ship in a rope frame with setting sun

Traditional · Mixed · Flash

A three-masted sailing ship with grey-shaded sails and a red pennant sits in an oval rope frame, with grey cumulus clouds on either side and birds in the sky. Below the hull, a red sun rises behind dark blue waves, and a red-orange glow surrounds the rope border. The bold black outlines, flat fills and painted shading are on a tan, speckled paper background.

Traditional Ship Sailing ship Rope Cloud Sun Wave Sea Flag Bird

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The Marigold Hope came in on the evening tide with her topsails furled and the sun going down red behind the breakwater, which Mr Okafor says is the first honest sunset he has seen since Valparaiso. I write from the Sailors' Rest on Canal Street, where the gaslamps buzz and somebody below is playing the same three chords on a concertina over and over. The rain has stopped. Out past the lock the water is black and busy with lamps.

You will want to know about the paint. The carver charged the owners extra for gilt along her stern, yet the hull has gone grey as a gull's back, and her sails, dyed in a Glasgow works, turned the colour of wet slate after the first gale off the Horn. I have stopped minding. A grey ship with a red pennant still looks like a ship that means business, and that is what the owners are paying for.

The thing I meant to tell you is about the lad from Deptford, Tom Pyke. He went ashore tonight with two shillings and came back near midnight with a bruise on his jaw and a slip of paper folded small in his fist. It was an address in Limehouse and the name of a woman who sells charts. He would not say more. I think he means to stay. I told him the sea does not care who you leave behind, only that you answer the rope when it calls.

I will post this at first light with the ship's mail. Tell Mother the sunsets here are worth the wait, and that I still carry the brass compass she gave me.

Your loving brother, Will