Lancashire Rocks are a group of offshore rocks and reefs on the western edge of Neptune Bay, along the southeastern shore of Kachemak Bay, about 13 miles (21 km) northeast of Seldovia and 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Homer, Alaska. The reefs were named by William Healey Dall of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1880 after the yacht Lancashire Witch, owned by Sir Thomas Hesketh, which visited Cook Inlet that year. Some charts show McKeon Rock as one of the largest and furthest offshore of the Lancashire Rocks. These formations are part of the McHugh Complex, consisting mostly of pillow and massive basalt. They are overlain by complexly folded and faulted radiolarian chert, formed between the Middle Triassic and Early Cretaceous periods.

The Lancashire Witch was built as a private vessel in 1878 by Robert Steel & Company of Greenock, Scotland. Designed by St. Clare John Byrne for Sir Thomas George Fermor-Hesketh, the 7th Baronet, she was named after the novel The Lancashire Witches by William Harrison Ainsworth, a romanticized account of the Pendle witches published in 1849. The vessel had composite construction with an iron keel, stem and stern posts, and iron framing, but with wooden planking. She was a three-masted auxiliary schooner with square-rigged sails on the foremast only and a two-cylinder compound inverted steam engine of 75 horsepower (56 kW). In 1879, Sir Thomas Hesketh made a world cruise on the Lancashire Witch, visiting Alaska in 1880. She was subsequently sold, and there were three other owners between 1883 and 1892, including Frank Linsly James, who explored Africa, India, and Mexico with the yacht. In 1894, the British Admiralty purchased the Lancashire Witch, renaming her HMS Waterwitch as a survey vessel.

Waterwitch was converted into a survey vessel and commissioned in 1894 for service on the Australia Station. On September 1, 1912, while anchored off Singapore, Waterwitch was struck amidships by the personal launch of the Governor of Singapore. The launch’s sharp prow pierced the wooden side of Waterwitch, causing her to sink in 24 feet (7.3 m) of water. The wreck was raised on September 10, 1912, and taken to drydock at Tanjong Pagar. Subsequently, she was sold to Captain Giovanni Gaggino, who converted the vessel into a private yacht, renaming it Fata Morgana. Read more here and here. Explore more of Lancashire Rocks and Kachemak Bay here: