"Her Name Was the Silver Queen"

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"Her Name Was the Silver Queen"

About the Boat:

Silver Queen was built in Southampton in 1926. Throughout the 1920's and 30's she worked as a tripper boat off Barry Island in Wales. At the outbreak of WW2 the peaceful trips off the beach were interrupted as she was requisitioned by the government to take part in Operation Dynamo.

Little more than a near beach tourist boat the Silver Queen was a heroine in her own time.

A Barry and Dynamo forgottten.

LINK: silverqueencruises.com/about/

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“Miracle Of Dunkirk” / Marvel from Barry Dock:

Between 28th May and 4th June 1940 no less than 338,000 British and allied troops were evacuated. Of these one third were saved from the beaches by these Little Ships. Although the retreat was a disaster for the Allies,the Little Ships like Silver Queen were immortalised in what is now known as the “Miracle Of Dunkirk”

However all was not lost for Silver Queen,she was refloated and worked in Ramsgate working under the Royal Navy as a Contraband control vessel chasing smugglers. During the war she was taken to Freetown in Sierra Leone working as a harbour patrol vessel. She was sold in May 1944 and we presume taken back to England on board one of the Navy ships.

Peacetime gave her a new lease of life up the coast in Sheerness as a tripper boat. In an era before regulation she reportedly carried 120 passengers on one trip around the WW2 wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery. In the mid 1950s she was bought by Mr. Ferguson from the Channel Islands who sailed her once again across the English Channel to St Peter Port where she was renamed Fermain V and operated as a Ferry until 1996 sailing from St Peter Port to the sandy beach of Fermain Bay.