A Castletown woman is calling for the deaths of the HMS Racehorse tragedy to be commemorated.

Fenella Collister recently discovered the story of a group of men from the town who saved the lives of 100 people aboard the sinking ship in 1822, meaning it will have been 200 years next year since the ship was wrecked.

Three of the locals along with six of the men from the boat died.

The ship was a Royal Navy 18-gun cruizer-class brig-sloop built in 1806.

On December 14, 1822, the ship sailed from Holyhead, Anglesey, to the Isle of Man, but the pilot mistook the light on Langness Pier for Douglas.

It ended up wrecked on some rocks at Skerranes on the tip of Langness. At Castletown, locals manned small fishing boats and started making trips to and from the ship to rescue the crew.

Four trips were made and on the last, one of the boats overturned with the captain on board.

Six men from the HMS Racehorse drowned and three of the rescuers - Robert Quayle, Thomas Hall and Norris Bridson - also died.

Fenella found out about the story because she works at Langness Lighthouse Cottages and manages their social media, through which she posts about various events throughout the Isle of Man’s history.

Fenella said: ’It’s all very relevant to our Manx history and that bravery should certainly be recognised somewhere.

’You’d think that somewhere in the British Isles there’d be some sort of memorial but there isn’t.’

She felt the Manx public weren’t aware of many important historical events in the island.

’People never seem to know about these things,’ she added. ’The thing I seem to have noticed is quite a lot of people following my Langness Lighthouse [Facebook] page don’t know these stories.’

Sir William Hilary, founder of the RNLI, was living in Douglas at the time and it’s believed the event was a contributing factor to him setting up the charity.

In 1968, the wreck of the ship was located by a team of local divers and many artefacts were recovered and donated to national collections, which included brass railings and ammunition.

Allison Fox, curator of archaeology at Manx National Heritage, has confirmed something to commemorate the tragedy is planned for next year.