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CLASSIC BOAT MAY 2015 51

DYNAMO REMEMBERED

Restoration Trust to David and George

Hewitt’s Rescue Wooden Boats charity

in North Norfolk. She had been

stripped for another restoration but

her hull was in good condition, though

she’d lost the design’s characteristic

mahogany engine cover. This has been

rebuilt as part of her extensive

restoration to her original appearance.

This is now almost complete and on 11

April she will be relaunched at

Wells-next-the-Sea and then make her

way down the coast, calling in at

Aldeburgh and other ports (details on

rescuewoodenboats.com), to

Above left: DLS

boats Lucy Lavers,

and, right, former

Dungeness

lifeboat Charles

Cooper Henderson

A stamp marks

Operation

Dynamo on a

previous Return

Designed for a life of sea rescue

Nineteen lifeboats answered the call

for Operation Dynamo, and two

newly-restored ones will be taking part

in this year’s Return.

Lucy Lavers, a 35ft 6in (10.8m)

Liverpool class lifeboat, was sent to

Dunkirk as soon as she had arrived at

Aldeburgh, Suffolk as its new No 2

lifeboat. With other lifeboats she

remained on the beaches for five days,

ferrying troops to waiting ships.

Following her retirement from

Aldeburgh in 1969 she went into

private ownership. In 2010 she was

transferred by the Dunkirk Little Ship

Ramsgate. Also making her post-

restoration debut will be the 41ft

(12.5m) motor cruiser conversion

Caresana, formerly Dungeness lifeboat

Charles Cooper Henderson. She was

the first of the new ‘beach motor

lifeboats’ at her launch in 1933.

Nothing is known of her Dunkirk

service except that she was found

damaged and drifting with her crew of

naval ratings and was herself rescued

by the Margate lifeboat. The Dunkirk

Little Ships Restoration Trust acquired

her in 2011, since when she has been

under restoration at Shepperton.

and a new participant will be the Aldeburgh lifeboat

Lucy Lavers, sent off to Dunkirk immediately on

delivery at her station.

Some additions to the fleet may include Norge, the

Norwegian Royal Yacht, 263ft (80m) built by Camper

& Nicholson in 1937. As Philante for Sir Thomas

Sopwith, she took part in Operation Ariel, also observed

by the ADLS, in which 215,000 troops were rescued

from Cherbourg, St Malo, Brest and other ports, 14-25

June. Malahne, a 176ft (54m) ‘superyacht’ also built in

1937 by Camper & Nicholson and currently completing

a major refit at Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth hopes to

be relaunched in time to join the return – her war service

has been researched and her eligibility to qualify as a

Dunkirk Little Ship currently awaits confirmation by the

ADLS committee. And, as reported in last month’s

Classic Boat, the partially-restored paddle steamer and

distinguished Dunkirk veteran Medway Queen is to be

towed round to join the Little Ships at Ramsgate.

The Dunkirk evacuation itself was blessed with almost

supernaturally calm conditions and mirror-smooth

waters. The Return is usually quite a fraught affair, given

the usual Channel chop, combined with the age of the

boats and the manifest unsuitability of many of them for

offshore work. This year the flotilla will be escorted by

both the RNLI and the Royal Navy. Even so, there is risk

and extreme discomfort involved. The owners of the

Little Ships take them to sea as a salute to the

predecessors, and to the brave, desperate men they went

to rescue. But they themselves deserve to be saluted.

For more on this year’s Return, visit classicboat.co.uk

CB323 Dunkirk.indd 51 24/03/2015 16:23