Lady Washington

Lady Washington, a Douglas-fir reproduction of an eighteenth-century tall ship, is the setting for a wedding abruptly transformed into a disaster. A vessel normally presented to the public as a piece of maritime history becomes part of the Megalodon's destructive passage through the harbor, and her final upright mast marks the wreck below.

Design and public role

Lady Washington is 112 feet long, with a twenty-four-foot beam. Her two masts each carry three sails and rise eighty-seven feet above the main deck. The ship is a full-size reproduction of an eighteenth-century tall ship, and the narrative identifies her as the first American-flagged vessel ever to sail around Cape Horn.

At the time of the attack, Lady Washington is ordinarily a port attraction, offering dockside tours as Washington State's Tall Ship Ambassador. Her historic appearance and public-facing role give the wedding setting a ceremonial calm: guests are seated on deck while the sails fill in a cool spring breeze. That familiar use of the ship is interrupted when she is privately chartered for a wedding, a booking the harbor master has not realized was made.

The wedding and the strike

The ceremony reaches its formal conclusion aboard the ship, with Captain James H. Locke, known to his friends and crew as Flagg, serving as captain. As the newlyweds kiss and begin making their way toward the reception on the main deck, Flagg notices movement in the bay. A rogue wave appears to be rolling toward the vessel; moments later, he sees a pale shape streaking beneath the surface.

Lady Washington is hit broadside with a resounding thud before Flagg can react. The wake washes over the main deck, the ship rolls sideways, and passengers fall onto the wooden deck as screams replace the ceremony's quiet. Buffet tables overturn, and a butane burner starts a small fire, which an alert guest quickly smothers. The sequence identifies the approaching predator as the Megalodon, which has raced toward a larger adversary moving along the surface after attacking a great white shark near the marina.

Sinking and aftermath

With her decks completely submerged, Lady Washington turns in a broad counterclockwise circle, drawing her downed mainsails with her. Flagg and the passengers cling to two life rafts as they converge with floating debris and revolve in the vortex created by the sinking ship. The scene shifts the vessel from a platform for a wedding into a hazard around which survivors must hold on.

The ship's splintered keel finally twists into the shallow, muddy bottom. Her foremast remains upright above the waves, marking the position of the wreck. This last image preserves a visible trace of Lady Washington even as the vessel itself disappears beneath the surface: the mast that once carried her sails becomes a marker for the ship lost during the attack.