Laxey of the Isle of Man, was built in 1854 to pump water from the Laxey mine shafts. Now a tourist attraction, it remains the largest working waterwheel in the world. Designed by Robert Casement, it is in diameter and wide. It revolves at about 3 rpm. The mines employed over 600 miners at their peak, producing lead, copper, silver and zinc, until they closed in 1929. The Wheel was owned by Edwin Kneale from 1939 to 1965; he saved it from being dismantled and ran it as a tourist attraction, before passing it on to the Manx nation, with the
SS Ellan Vannin (1883) "Fenella" in order to undergo her rebuild, on Friday 19 January 1883. Rebuilt in 1883, her size was increased to 375 gross register tons and her speed to . She was renamed (the Manx translation for "Mona's Isle") on 16 November 1883, following her conversion to a propeller-driven ship. "Ellan Vannin" was a twin-screw vessel driven by a two-cylinder compound steam engine made by Westray, Copeland and Co. at Barrow. Her boiler pressure was raised to . She was capable of carrying 300 passengers and normally had a crew of 14. "Ellan Vannin" primarily operated out of Ramsey to Whitehaven,