I have an ardent interest in sailing and rafting and I am currently reading a book called “A Speck on the Sea” by William H Longyard (Seventy accounts of big adventures in small boats), and one account that has interested me a great deal is of a Trans-Atlantic trip in 1870.

John Charles Buckley and Nicholas Primoraz purchased a lifeboat from a marine salvage yard somewhere in Liverpool.

They refitted the vessel and made it worthy of a record --breaking achievement. It was to be known as “City of Ragusa.” They sailed from Liverpool to Boston, and then made the return voyage from New York to Liverpool. The fate of the boat is known but is vague; one account states that the City of Ragusa was taken to Birkenhead Park and installed on the large lake, where it floated for many years and eventually rotted and sank. The other account, supposedly more credible, states that the boat was displayed at a boat yard in Birkenhead Park and later the owner of the boat moved it to a hotel in Rock Ferry where he took up residence.

Primoraz was supposedly wealthy and funded the voyage. I presume that if this second account is true, then the City of Ragusa was possibly displayed at the Royal Rock Hotel.

Can any of your readers shed any light on this mystery?

Daniel M Bibby, Birkenhead.