[3] The spritsail rig has many advantages on rivers and in confined waters: maneuvering under topsail and mizzen catching the steadier wind clear of the wharf side buildings.

Their flat-bottomed hulls allow them to ride over the shallow waters of the estuary and penetrate the creeks and higher reaches of the rivers of the south east.

[7] The Mistley barges worked Dunkirk, Calais, Antwerp, Ostend, Alderney, Bruges and the Netherlands, from ports including Dover, Rochester, London, Lowestoft, Goole, Shoreham, Southampton and Newport.

Ephraim Cripps was her skipper for twenty years and kept records of each voyage – Colchester was her main port from 1928 to 1930, and she worked the Essex and Suffolk coasts.

The first major civilian maritime event of the Second World War was the Dunkirk evacuation, in which hundreds of small ships rescued Allied soldiers from beaches in northern France.

Under cover of darkness, the tug St. Fagan towed three barges, Pudge, Thyra and Lady Rosebery, to Dunkirk, and released them toward the beaches.

She took survivors on board and set off for England, picking up a tow from the tug Tanga on the way, to arrive safely back at Ramsgate.