Lady Haig

Important context

These are vessels recorded as having some association or possible involvement with Operation Dynamo. This is not a definitive list of participating ships, and inclusion does not establish that a vessel reached Dunkirk, evacuated personnel or otherwise took part. A source record may exist because a claim was investigated, qualified or rejected; for example, an Orde entry may expressly state that the vessel did not participate. Always review the underlying records and source notes before drawing a conclusion.

The archive and its metadata are still being compiled and are presented as a work in progress. Entries may be incomplete, change as additional material is processed or appear in more than one source record.

Historic logs, handwritten documents, later indexes and transcriptions may contain spelling or identification differences. For example, NIAIAD ERRANT, MAID ERRANT and NAIAD ERRANT refer to the same vessel under variant spellings. Search cautiously, try likely variants and check for multiple records before drawing conclusions.

Cross-collection links and record counts should be treated as candidate matches rather than confirmed vessel identities. Matching may involve case and punctuation normalisation, partial-name or OCR text matches, aliases and associated metadata. A Roman-numeral suffix such as I, II, III, IV or V may be omitted, separated or mistranscribed, causing a base name to match a different numbered vessel. With multi-word names, a candidate may also be returned because only one distinctive word matched. Verify the complete name and numeral against vessel type, dimensions, builder, ownership, dates and the underlying source before merging or relying on records.

Also known as

No aliases recorded.

ORDE: 0 · SCSL: 0 · Lloyd’s: 0 · Red List: 0

Help complete the archive

Do you have a photo of this vessel you can share?

Contribute photographs of Lady Haig to the archive for editorial review. Submissions remain private and will only be published following approval by an administrator.

1. Upload photos 2. Describe 3. Validate email

Select photographs

JPG, PNG or WebP; up to 12 photos and 20 MB per image. Images upload privately to S3 before description.

Uploading photographs securely…

I confirm that I am the copyright holder for every selected photograph and permit OperationDynamo.navy to store, review and publish approved images under the contribution terms.

Validate your email Your name Email address

We will email a 24-hour validation link. After confirmation, the photographs enter administrator review. If you later create an account with this address, they will be linked automatically.

Already have an account? Log in before uploading to link new photographs immediately.

← Back

ORDE Registry

0 records

0 potential matching records have currently been identified.

Further indexing may identify vessel particulars, reported movements, participation assessments, named personnel and source references. The absence of a current match does not establish that no relevant source exists.

We are compiling and checking transcriptions, metadata, vessel-name matches, source references and reuse permissions before publishing further detail. This work helps prevent incomplete OCR, historic spelling variations or unverified associations from being presented as established fact.

Account registrations and access to these developing records are temporarily unavailable. Existing account holders may log in, and everyone can join the newsletter for publication updates.

Small Craft Service List

0 records

0 potential matching records have currently been identified.

Further indexing may identify service-list entries, vessel metadata, source-page references and protected full-size document images. The absence of a current match does not establish that no relevant source exists.

Account registrations and access to these developing records are temporarily unavailable. Existing account holders may log in, and everyone can join the newsletter for publication updates.

No Small Craft records.

Red List (1939–40) — OCR

0 records

0 potential matching records have currently been identified.

Further indexing may identify OCR text matches, source files, page references and digitised page imagery. The absence of a current match does not establish that no relevant source exists.

Account registrations and access to these developing records are temporarily unavailable. Existing account holders may log in, and everyone can join the newsletter for publication updates.

Ship Details

These details have been aggregated from multiple sources and may include contemporary records, later recollections, claims or assertions for which no corroborating evidence has been identified. Inclusion does not establish that any account or assertion is accurate. The information may be incomplete, out of date, disputed or incorrect and should be checked against the underlying source records and independent evidence before being relied upon.

Ship type: Fishing Vessel
LADY HAIG | The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships top of page Mai - Juin 1940 The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships A D L S HOME LITTLE SHIPS ADLS MEMBERS ALL KNOWN SHIPS LOST SHIPS ADLS DLS for SALE DUNKIRK 1940 EVENTS COMMITTEE IDENTIFYING DLS BOOK LIST LINKS More Use tab to navigate through the menu items. LADY HAIG: Pro Gallery LADY HAIG Boat Type: Deal Hoveller Boat Length: 27ft Boat Beam: 7ft 6ins Boat Draft: 2ft Boat Displacement: Not known Boat Engine: 2.2L BMC Diesel Boat Construction: Clinker, elm and oak Boat Builder: Dan Trott, North Deal Boat Year: 1928 Saving lives at sea had long been every-day work for Lady Haig when she was towed across the Channel by the Skoot (schuit) Hilda on Friday 31st May 1940. She was commanded and manned by the Royal Navy, but also on board as First Engineer was Reginald Walter, who was mentioned in despatches. Lady Haig was badly damaged during her work on the beaches, but luckily survived to be towed back to her home port. She was a lifeboat with a difference. Only 27ft long, a clinker-built open boat, she was a 'hoveller' - a name given to unlicensed, privately owned pilot- and life- boats, which went out to wrecks in the olden days, (often to plunder them!). Lady Haig was built for Harry Meakins, the Landlord of the Port Arms public house in Deal and she was always kept ready for launching off the beach. The notorious Goodwin Sands and the Downs, on the approach to the narrowest part of the English Channel, have claimed thousands of ships over the years. Harry Meakins then aged 63, and his crew, Dick Brown with his son Jim, his cousins Charles and Dave Pritchard, both in their 70's, Edward Griggs, Thomas and George Baker, both younger men - would turn out at a moment's notice to render assistance. Their lifeboat received no subsidy or grant. They relied for payment on bounties alone. Sometimes they were told in clear terms that their help was not required because, for the ship owners, it incurred a liability. . 1939 had been a busy year for Lady Haig and other Deal boats. When war was declared, the Downs became a contraband control station and there were often 200 ships at anchor there. Inevitably, some collisions occurred and when air raids started, the Deal ships were kept busy rendering assistance, taking out stores and medical supplies and landing survivors. Jim Brown, the last of her pre-war crew surviving in 1989, took part in one of Lady Haig's most famous rescues not long before Dunkirk, that of the 6,000 ton steamship Mahratta. Mahratta went ashore on Goodwin Fork during the early evening of 11th October 1939. Fifty years later Jim, a retired Trinity House Captain with 42 years' service, recalled how they received a telegram from the owners authorising them to go out and take charge of salvage operations. After four days, the efforts of six tugs to refloat the Mahratta failed, the weather worsened and as the tide scooped out the sands under her keel, the Mahratta's back broke with rivets going off like rifle shots! Wide cracks opened in her hull until finally her boilers exploded while Lady Haig was lying alongside with Jim's father on board. It was then a race against time to get the crew off in a full South-westerly gale, with a heavy sea running. The tugs had left her to anchor off Deal and Lady Haig ferried the crew from the wreck to the steamer Challenge in four runs. On their third run, they took the ship's lifeboat in tow with luggage they had saved. As they cleared the bow of the Mahratta, they were hit by a big wave and almost capsized. So, they slipped the lifeboat, but only after they had rescued ten men from it. Lady Haig had been built for Meakins by Dan Trott and was launched from his North Deal yard in January 1928. When she was not saving lives, she took holiday-makers for pleasure trips round the bay and engaged in light haulage. Jim Brown started in the Trinity House service as a seaman and retired forty-two years later as one of their most respected Masters who also earned fame for the superb and intricate model ships he constructed during his time off. By a strange coincidence, two of Jim Brown's cousins, who served in the Grenadier Guards, were rescued from the beaches in Lady Haig. After her part in the Evacuation of Dunkirk, Lady Haig went back to her peaceful occupation of fishing. She was eventually converted to a cabin cruiser and kept on the River Stour near Sandwich, Kent. On one occasion, she nearly came to grief when she crashed against one of the winches on Deal beach in a severe storm. She was badly holed on the port side and was left to rot ashore. This is where John Burbridge found her in 1979. They had intended burning her on the beach where she lay. Instead, John Burbridge repaired her, moored her in Margate Harbour and used her for fishing and trawling round Sandwich Bay. Now the old lady has been pensioned off. If you do own this vessel, or are aware of her more recent history, please contact us so that this record can be updated. Note concerning the Deal beach winches - Most of these were purchased and re-purposed having been removed from landing craft used during Operation Overlord (Normandy). Now in Dover Museum. LADY HAIG: Project The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships ©2021 The Association of Dunkirk Little Ships. All rights reserved. bottom of page

Lloyd’s Yacht Register (1939)

Source: Lloyd’s Register Foundation, Heritage & Education Centre, Lloyd’s Register of Yachts 1939, digitised via Internet Archive. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Images have been converted, resized and watermarked for web display; machine-generated table OCR has been added.

No Lloyd’s records.

Document Collections — Tagged Pages

11 pages

Imaged document collections containing pages whose OCR text or table data has been tagged with the name Lady Haig. Open a collection to view the page images and transcriptions.

NMM 940.542.1 1940 Orde vol ii

NMM

View matching pages →

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.