Home - Yachts - World’s largest yacht transporter delivers historic luxury boat to Cornwall
A historic luxury boat has arrived in Cornwall after catching a lift on the world’s largest yacht transporter. Built in 1936, the 127ft motor yacht Amazone, which was used during the Dunkirk evacuation Operation Dynamo in 1940, has been delivered to Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth, where it will undergo a refit.
However, this was an Amazone delivery with a difference, making the journey from France inside the huge, purpose-built Yacht Servant. Becoming the world’s largest yacht transporter when it was launched in 2022, the 700ft ship is capable of carrying up to 36 superyachts.
Leaving Le Harve in France on Sunday (February 11) Yacht Servant arrived in Falmouth the following afternoon. After being postponed for a day, the 88-year-old luxury yacht Amazone was towed out of the transporter ship in the early hours of yesterday (Wednesday, February 14).
Yacht Servant is a semi-submersible vessel, capable of taking on ballast water until the main deck is flooded. Yachts can then be floated in or out from the stern of the ship. With the other vessels in her load securely fastened, Amazone was carefully towed out of Yacht Servant at first light before being taken around the docks to Pendennis Shipyard.
Put up for sale eight years ago for £1.5 million by its then-owner architect Mireille Huet, Amazone hit the headlines when it was widely reported in the press that the classic motor boat had originally been commissioned by wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. In fact, the luxury yacht was originally built for Commander Léon Andrien Hemeleers-Shenley of the Belgium Embassy by Thornycroft Shipyard in Southampton.
The story goes that Amazone was paid for by the Commander’s wife, Una, and three years after being built, was laid up in Thornycroft Shipyard while its ownership was disputed between the couple. It stayed in Southampton until it was commandeered by the Admiralty, at Churchill’s disposal, for Operation Dynamo in 1940.
Known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, the evacuation of Allied soldiers from France saw nearly 340,000 men rescued over the course of eight days. As the German Army advanced, a fleet of over 800 boats including Amazone rescued soldiers from France’s beaches, taking them back to the safety of England.
Amazone is reported to have made at least three trips across the English Channel, bringing almost 550 troops back to the UK. It is believed that the yacht is one of just two surviving small barges to have been part of the effort.
Following the war, Amazone was renamed My Evangeline and Welsh Liberty, when it was part of a fleet of luxury charter yachts in Wales. Now, having been safely delivered under her original name, it is hoped that a spell of TLC at Pendennis Shipyard in Falmouth could see Amazone return to her former glory.
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