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Yacht Transport News 2010

BIG FERRY RESCUES DUNKIRK LITTLE SHIP

Norfolkline helped to rescue one of the smallest of the surviving "little ships" after the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Dunkirk. The 85 year old ANNE motored back to France in convoy with rare survivors of the 700 boats used in 1940 to rescue 338,000 soldiers from two defeated armies.

MAERSK DOVER shadows the Thames sailing barge GRETA and the gaff-rigged 1929 lifeboat STENOA

ANNE successfully arrived at the Dunkirk sea lock on May 27, but her 79 year old gravity-fed petrol engines developed a fault as she was entering the docks. Built in oak, pitch pine and teak in Cornwall in 1925, she is believed to be the only boat to have made the 2010 trip to Dunkirk on her original motors. Twice since the war, previous owners attempted and failed to motor her back to the Dunkirk reunions.

She took her place for three days in the line-up of veteran boats in the Bassin du Commerce.

Norfolkline shipped dozens of preserved army and RAF lorries and their crews into Dunkirk for a poignant line-up along the quays of of the city as the "little ships" arrived in France.

As the other Dunkirk "little ships" headed home across the Channel, the Dunkirk dockmasters towed ANNE to the bomb-scarred Ecluse de Trystram, where the Marine-Diffusion team lifted her from the water and gently loaded her on a Sealand Boat Deliveries lorry for return to HMS Sultan, the Royal Navy base at Gosport.

The line donated a free space for the Sealand lorry bringing ANNE back to Dover, where the unpredictable UK Border Agency ordered the little boat to be X-rayed on her return from the Continent.

Restored in Scotland by the Little Ships of Dunkirk team, she was built in Cornwall in pitch pine on oak frames in 1925. "Her twenty horse power gravity fed Ailsa Craig motors were built in 1931 and are probably the last of their kind in service. They performed well, until we picked up ignition and reverse gear problems in the Dunkirk Channel", said team leader Kes Travers. "We have plans for her to be based at Chichester for filming and special events."

Lorry driver Mark Chapman, outward bound to rescue the ANNE, spotted four "little ships" on their way home from Dunkirk. In the evening light, far below the Queen Elizabeth II suspension bridge over the the River Thames, he saw MIMOSA and three other boats ploughing east in a diamond formation: "A wonderful sight that may never be repeated."

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Griff Rhys Jones's celebrated Rhodes 45 sloop UNDINA alongside at Cherbourg, bound for Les Voiles de St Tropez.

Lifting UNDINA to a Transboat super-low trailer for a BTX move from Cherbourg to St Tropez in 2007.

Undina 2007

CLICK this picture of UNDINA for boat transport news from 2009.

NAVIGARE NECESSE EST, VIVERE NON EST NECESSE
To sail is necessary, to survive is not necessary.

Attributed by Plutarch to Gnaeus Pompeius who sent sailors to sea in bad weather to bring grain from Africa to Rome.

Ici on trouve la metéo, des vendeurs de bateaux, les spécialistes du transport bateau et la cyberbourse électronique des transporteurs.

Ein Amerikaner aus Kalifornien war 1997 unser erster Kunde. Er liess seine Yacht in Amerika von Küste zu Küste transportieren. Seit diesem ungewöhnlichen Boottransport, hat unsere Transportbörse hunderte von Yachtbesitizern mit anderen Bootstransporteuren in Verbindung gebracht. Stellen auch sie ihr Transportproblem auf dem BTX board dar. Die Bootstranporteure geben kostenlos Ratschläge und bieten ihnen Preise an.

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