ANNE is powered by the last-known pair of Ailsa Craig LB4 petrol engines. The gravity-fed petrol motors were built at Chiswick in 1931, when the Ailsa Craig firm held a royal warrant from King George V. In 2010 the engines powered the boat from Ramsgate to Dunkirk for the 70th anniversary reunion of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, making ANNE the only ‘little ship’ to return to Dunkirk in 2010 on her original engines. After a refit in Cheshire by Paul Gilling she was bought by Kes Travers to undergo a major overhaul through the winter of 2009-10 at the workshops of the Spirit of Dunkirk Limited in Burnhouses, Berwickshire. Great care was taken to retain the original items and features of a 1925 gentleman’s motor yacht. A team of shipwrights, including Farquhar Mackenzie, 70, and Dominic Bunting, 25, fitted a new grown oak stem post, discovered by Kes Travers in a Devon boatyard. The post-war wheelhouse and interior were replaced according to pre-war practice in traditional materials including English elm panelling in the saloon. A Scottish expert on pre-war Bentley ignition systems overhauled the Ailsa Craig electrical systems. The Spirit of Dunkirk team relaunched ANNE at Ramsgate in May 2010 with a seven minute aerobatic display and a dipped wing salute from a Second World War Harvard aircraft. She is now berthed in Chichester.
ANNE Dunkirk Little Ship
ANNE is powered by the last-known pair of Ailsa Craig LB4 petrol engines. The gravity-fed petrol motors were built at Chiswick in 1931, when the Ailsa Craig firm held a royal warrant from King George V. In 2010 the engines powered the boat from Ramsgate to Dunkirk for the 70th anniversary reunion of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships, making ANNE the only ‘little ship’ to return to Dunkirk in 2010 on her original engines. After a refit in Cheshire by Paul Gilling she was bought by Kes Travers to undergo a major overhaul through the winter of 2009-10 at the workshops of the Spirit of Dunkirk Limited in Burnhouses, Berwickshire. Great care was taken to retain the original items and features of a 1925 gentleman’s motor yacht. A team of shipwrights, including Farquhar Mackenzie, 70, and Dominic Bunting, 25, fitted a new grown oak stem post, discovered by Kes Travers in a Devon boatyard. The post-war wheelhouse and interior were replaced according to pre-war practice in traditional materials including English elm panelling in the saloon. A Scottish expert on pre-war Bentley ignition systems overhauled the Ailsa Craig electrical systems. The Spirit of Dunkirk team relaunched ANNE at Ramsgate in May 2010 with a seven minute aerobatic display and a dipped wing salute from a Second World War Harvard aircraft. She is now berthed in Chichester.