The Royal Thames Yacht Club's schooner Norseman off a fortified headland

Rigged as a screw schooner, Norseman was designed by St. Clare Byrne of Liverpool and built across the Mersey by Lairds at Birkenhead in 1875. Registered at 189 tons gross (129 net & 221 Thames), she measured 124 feet in length with a 20 foot beam and was powered by one of her builders own 40hp. engines. Owned by Mr. Samuel Pratt of Werneth Park, Oldham, Lancashire from new, he kept her until 1890 when he replaced her with another larger yacht of the same name. The original Norseman was sold to Mr. John Player of Liverpool who renamed her Waverley, and she survived into the twentieth century under the new names of Sea Belle, then Enchantress and finally Saint Bride.