World’s Oldest Yacht

Peggy of Castletown

Published in

UK Heritage Holiday Island

4 min readNov 10, 2015

The world’s oldest existing yacht - built between 1789 & 1793 - is Peggy, an armed clinker built schooner rigged vessel which was walled up in an Isle of Man boathouse for over 135 years. She’s the oldest surviving Manx craft and one of only a very few surviving vessels built in the 18th century.

Peggy In her former cramped resting place

Built for George Quayle (1751–1835) a prominent trader, politician and banker on the Isle of Man, she remained - after Quayle’s death - preserved in the boathouse, now part of The Nautical Museum in the island’s former capital of Castletown.

A set of her spars is preserved with her, along with her armaments (six cannon and two stern chasers) and the winding gear employed to draw her into the boathouse. She is the oldest surviving schooner in the world and the oldest surviving example of the shallop hull form. She was fitted with sliding keels (progenitors of the modern dagger board) not long after the invention of the technology by John Schank, and she is the oldest surviving example of such a vessel.

Peggy has been surveyed three times, first by P.J. Oke in 1935 of the Society for Nautical Research (drawings now residing at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London), then by Mr Richard Cowley of Kirk Michael, Isle of Man, and most recently in 1968 by D. K. Jones at the behest of Manx National Heritage. Basil Greenhill, then Director of the National Maritime Museum, took a keen interest in her around this time. Peggy is now recognized as a vessel of international significance, which is reflected in her citation on the UK National Historic Ships Register (National Historic Fleet). Her well-documented provenance, her fine state of relative preservation, her historic location and her design all contribute to this.

source: Wikipedia

Having lain in her walled-up boathouse hiding place for more than a century since the death of George Quayle, Peggy was rediscovered after the death of Quayle’s descendant, Emily Quayle, in 1935. Peggy and her boathouse were bequeathed to the Manx nation and became the centrepiece of the Manx Nautical Museum, which opened in 1951.

She was very gently restored after the Second World War, and has rested intact and largely untouched until 2014, when a series of super-tides threatened her location.

A spokesperson for owning organisation Manx National Heritage has said Peggy is one of the most important historic artefacts in the British Isles, and a decision was made to move the vessel to a climate-controlled conservation facility in the island’s capital, Douglas, which was recently purchased by the Manx Museum and National Trust. Once there, Peggy will be stabilised, examined and conserved.

The conservation work, which is expected to take about five years, will involve a team of specialist archaeological contractors from England.

The Nautical Museum will now undergo partial redevelopment and refurbishment to improve the entrance and shop area with a new ‘Quayle Gallery’, telling more of the personal story of George Quayle and his family as well as the Peggy.

Recent archaeological investigation and archival research has established that the site was home to possibly the earliest slipway in the British Isles, and that Quayle subsequently replaced this with a unique private dock, which acted as a sea lock.

Exhibits will include a number of recent finds from the 2014 excavations including a leather pistol holster, a flintlock pistol mechanism, some coconut shell drinking cups, and what is believed to be an eighteenth century microscope.

The Nautical Museum will reopen to the public in May 2015 following completion of the improvement works and the gallery refresh.

References:

Peggy Blog — http://peggy-of-castletown.blogspot.com

BBC Isle of Man — http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-31041058

Peggy entry in National Ships registry-http://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/register/1125/peggy

Gaff Rig Handbook — https://goo.gl/HmG1BS

iMuseum — Quayle Bridge House Papers http://www.imuseum.im/?p=61