Wayfarer
Another Dunkirk 'Little Ship' seen on the River Thames during the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant in 2012. A 30-foot steel-hulled motor cruiser, Wayfarer was built by the Salter Brothers in Oxford in 1928 for £250.
In August 1975, a decaying vessel, then called River Princess, was found on a bank of the River Medway in Kent. The wooden superstructure seemed past repair, but the fine lines of the steel hull aroused a desire in those who found her to save her.
The superstructure was indeed only fit for burning and the engine (originally a Morris Vedette) had long gone. Some of her plates had rusted through where the iron ballast had rested against the hull. Temporary repairs were effected and she was towed to a covered slipway downstream. There the worst of the iron plates were removed and used as templates by a local steelyard for replacements to be cut in steel. It was during the installation of these that her original name was discovered and reused.
Her restoration was finally completed in 1982, but it was only in 1990 that her owners, Michael and Vicky Cowles, discovered her participation in Operation Dynamo.
Wayfarer
Another Dunkirk 'Little Ship' seen on the River Thames during the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant in 2012. A 30-foot steel-hulled motor cruiser, Wayfarer was built by the Salter Brothers in Oxford in 1928 for £250.
In August 1975, a decaying vessel, then called River Princess, was found on a bank of the River Medway in Kent. The wooden superstructure seemed past repair, but the fine lines of the steel hull aroused a desire in those who found her to save her.
The superstructure was indeed only fit for burning and the engine (originally a Morris Vedette) had long gone. Some of her plates had rusted through where the iron ballast had rested against the hull. Temporary repairs were effected and she was towed to a covered slipway downstream. There the worst of the iron plates were removed and used as templates by a local steelyard for replacements to be cut in steel. It was during the installation of these that her original name was discovered and reused.
Her restoration was finally completed in 1982, but it was only in 1990 that her owners, Michael and Vicky Cowles, discovered her participation in Operation Dynamo.