Association of Dunkirk Little Ships

The 2012 Commemorative Cruise will be held in London, in West India Dock to coincide with the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. The Pageant to be held at high water on the afternoon of Sunday 3 June 2012 and the event will see up to a thousand boats muster on the River Thames in preparation for Her Majesty The Queen to lead the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant. The Pageant celebrates Her Majesty's sixty years of service by magnificently bringing the Thames to life.
Little Ships will assemble in Barnes reach prior to the event.

Dunkirk Little Ships Assembling For Queen's Jubilee
1 March 2012 - The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships (ADLS) is pleased to announce details of
its participation in the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.
In the week leading up to the Pageant, 40 Dunkirk Little Ships will make their way to Barn Elms
Reach on the Thames near Putney. From there they will assemble into the largest single class of
powered boats taking part in the Pageant before heading downstream immediately behind the
Royal Section. A further 5 Little Ships will be taking part in the Avenue of Sail.

Built in 1931 as a flour barge and originally named the Gainsborough Trader, MFH moved from the Humber to the Thames when Pickfords bought her as a lighter for their Port of London operation. She was the first steel Humber Keel to have a motor as well as her sails and still retains her original Kelvin diesel engine, known as 'Harriet'. (Previously these vessels were either sailing barges or steam powered). She is mentioned in a book called 'Humber Keels and Keelsmen' by Fred Schofield, which describes life on the Humber in the last 100 years.