(Commonwealth Union)_Several important shipwrecks off the Manx coast will be highlighted on a new commemorative stamp collection. The calamities, which span 500 years, are shown on the six stamps.
It occurs on the 200th anniversary of the HMS Racehorse’s sinking off rocks at Langness in December 1822. The shipwrecks were chosen, according to Maxine Cannon of Isle of Man Stamps and Coins, for their “historical significance and interesting backstories”.”The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other work that have emerged since AR5 [the previous assessment] demonstrate that not only is sea level rise greater than one meter (relative to the 1995-2014 baseline) conceivable at some point in the 21st century but it is also likely,” says the report.
The sinking of the HMS Racehorse, in which three Castletown rescuers and six crew members perished, is said to have contributed to Sir William Hillary’s decision to found the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), charity aimed at saving lives at sea around the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
A commemorative exhibition, including wreckage artifacts and celebrating the disaster’s anniversary, was scheduled to open in the town in December. Two of the designs were original paintings by artist Paul Parker, while the other four were based on photographs from the Manx National Heritage archives. The collection also contains the Brig Lily, which was stranded in Kitterland in heavy weather in December 1852 while sailing from Liverpool to Africa with a cargo that included gunpowder.
Five men perished in the disaster itself, while 29 local workers were murdered in an explosion that occurred during the recovery work. Many hundreds of ships have met their demise off the shore of the Isle of Man, according to maritime historian Adrian Corkill, who contributed to the collection. The island’s strategic position in the Irish Sea and closeness to important maritime lanes have contributed to centuries’ worth of losses.
