In the last few years of the eighteenth century, the west coast of North America was terrorized by Captain 'Redwake' John, a bloodthirsty pirate that earned his moniker by wounding captives taken in battle and trailing them in the sea behind his ship, the SS King George's Madness, leaving a trail of blood in the water for leagues behind his vessel. This notorious practice often drew entire schools of sharks, which would frenzy as his ship grappled with Spanish galleons and English exploration vessels.

This notorious pirate kept his hideout in Gull Harbor, and in 1899 he was caught by surprise as he was sailing out by a pair of English frigates. The resulting sea battle was so fierce that all three vessels sank, with Captain Redwake going down on his vessel defiantly fighting.

The cove his ship sank in became known as King George Cove, and for over a century it was little more than a fur trader outpost. It wasn't until the early 1950's that true civilization came to Gull Harbor, when Holywood starlet Agnis Adams saw the cove during a cruise up the Pacific Northwest in her personal yacht, and fell in love with the area. She sank a good deal of her fortune into the cove, attracting wealth-seekers and businessmen to the area. By 1955, the town of King George Cove was officially founded.

In 1994, the King George Cove Historical Society finished construction of a replica of the SS King George's Madness as the spearhead of an educational and tourism focus by the city. Although disaster almost struck when a sudden storm overwhelmed the ship on her maiden voyage (with some of the crew washing overboard), the survivors proudly wrestled her back into port. Since then, she has sailed gracefully across the west coast as an ambassador for the city, returning to her home port frequently to serve as the centerpiece of the seasonal King George Cove Founding Festival.