Name Ferry Nymph

This vessel was built as FERRY NYMPH and, with her sister ship SOUTHERN QUEEN ferried passengers across the entrance of Poole Harbour for J Harvey & Sons, her owner who had built both vessels. On 29 May 1940, the Admiralty ordered both ships to Dover. There FERRY NYMPH was taken over by Lieut/ Cdr Gerrard RN, re-fuelled and despatched to Dunkirk. She is known to have taken off 72 soldiers on one trip and 90 on another across the Channel to Ramsgate. Eventually she was towed back to Poole in July. Her sister ship did not return. She continued operating as a ferry for her original owners until 1953, when she was sold to the Great Yarmouth Ferry Company. She was then sold to Perthy Fields, a local fisherman in 1963, who renamed her SHEPHERD LAD, then converted and used her as a herring drifter for 22 years. In 1985 he sold SHEPHERD LAD and the new owner used her for stern trawling in the Thames Estuary. In 1994, SHEPHERD LAD sank in rough weather off Holehaven, but was salvaged by members of the Dunkirk Little Ships Association and once more restored.

Bought by a new owner in 2021, she returned to her original name of  FERRY NYMPH, and after being restored, she is now based in Canterbury, offering excursion trips around the Kent countryside and down to the sea at Pegwell Bay.