This example can be found in the Strathnaver Museum at Farr alongside the dog buoy pictured below.
A St Kilda mailboat is a wooden 'boat', containing a letter, usually sealed in a cocoa tin. A sheep's bladder acts as a 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. It was later used by St Kildans as a tourist gimmick.
Mailboats are now sent by St Kilda work parties as part of the ritual of visiting St Kilda. They are carried by the Gulf Stream and usually reach land in Scotland or Scandinavia. Records of mailboats, and where they were washed up, are published in the St Kilda Mail.
A dog skin buoy!
Many of these were found in the walls of houses along with an old boot and a bottle of whisky, each of which was said to bring luck. A good catch, happiness and fertility.
During my visit to the museum, I spoke with one of the museum guides, Eliott, who remembered me from the Mackay country residency.
In the Highlands, coracles did not take the same name as in the Westerm Isles and Ireland, instead, it is said to have been called a Cullie, or Culaidh.
The Farr stone that stands in the grave yard surrounding the museum, is said to have been brought to Betthyhill by Monks, possibly travelling in a coracle.
Farr Stone
Eliot also told me about the Incan's who said that blond haired, blue eyed, red bearded foregners would come to their shores in boats made from Serpeant skins. They would give them gold and then the foreigners would go away. The Serpant image may have been a viking boat with the head of a dragon or some kind of snake, or possibly the foreigners arrived in leather boats, mistaken for snake skin.
