St Kilda mailboat washes ashore

2 July 2018

A St Kilda mailboat has been found in South Uist, just 22 days after it was launched.

The wooden receptacle was sent adrift on 20 June by work party volunteers leaving the archeliago after a period of repairing walls, paths and ditches.

The mailbot washed ashore 50 miles away at Iochdar in South Uist. Postcards contained inside have been mailed to their destinations.

A St Kilda mailboat is a wooden 'boat', containing a letter, usually sealed in a cocoa tin or plastic box.

Traditionally, a sheep's bladder was used as a float, but it is now a fishing float.

The first mailboat was sent out as a distress signal in time of famine by John Sands, a journalist, who was stranded on St Kilda during winter of 1876.

Mailboats are now sent by St Kilda work parties as part of the ritual of visiting the island. They are carried by the Gulf Stream and usually reach land in Scotland though some have turned up in Scandinavia.

Volunteers launched the St Kilda mailboat on departing the island