Log Boats to Steam Launches

By DIANA MATTHEWS

SL (Steam Launch) Dolly c.1850, thought to be the oldest mechanically powered boat in the world, steamed on Windermere until the 1890s when she was taken over Kirkstone Pass to Ullswater. There her timbers got pinched in a frost and she sank. She was found by sub aqua divers in the 1960s and restored without replacing anything except the original steam whistle which the then HRH The Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) helped to locate. The story will gradually emerge about Dolly’s name, her first owner, her last Victorian owner and amazingly the day she sank, then the story of the royal connection.