Association of Dunkirk Little Ships

The 2012 Commemorative Cruise will be held in London, in King George V 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.

The Newhaven lifeboat saved 51 soldiers at Dunkirk, but the mission nearly ended in disaster when she was left high and dry for 4 hours before returning on 3rd June. Cecil & Lilian Philpott was in service at Newhaven from 1930 to 1959; apart from Dunkirk she was launched 159 times and saved 99 lives. In November 1940 she was rammed and nearly cut in half by HM trawler Avanturine, but she survived. Later she served in the RNLI's reserve fleet at various lifeboat stations around the coast increasing her score with a further 76 incidents, and saving 49 more lives.