The first ferry built specifically for transporting passengers to and from Bald Head Island, Patriot is a twin-hulled catamaran named for the schooner on which Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr and wife of Joseph Alston, governor of South Carolina) was sailing when she disappeard in 1812, somewhere off North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Prior to the Patriot’s disappearance it had served as a privateer during the War of 1812, when it was commissioned by the United States government to prey on English shipping.