Over 1,000 boats will sail from Putney to Tower on June 2, 2012
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The largest flotilla of boats to travel on the Thames for 350 years will sail past Fulham on the afternoon of June 2, 2012.
The event is to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee and she will join the flotilla in a specially designed barge. It is estimated that over 1,000 boats will join the flotilla, allowing the Queen to claim she has emulated the feat of Helen of Troy.
At 2.30pm, at high water, the Queen will depart from a Putney and will arrive at Tower Bridge 90 minutes later.
The flotilla is expected to be seven and a half miles long, and as the Queen reaches Tower Bridge, it is expected that the last boast will still only be at Wandsworth.
The public are invited to take part in one of the major celebrations of Her Majesty ’s sixty year reign by registerin their boats to join the flotilla, which will be assembled from across the UK, the Commonwealth and around the World.
With a Bank Holiday the following day, the event organisers are planning for well over one million people lining the banks of the Thames to witness the pageant and join in the celebrations.
Rowed boats and working boats and pleasure vessels of all shapes and sizes will be dressed with streamers and Union Jacks, their crews and passengers turned out in their finest rigs. The armed forces, fire, police, rescue and other services will all be afloat and there will be historic boats, wooden launches, steam vessels and other boats of note.
The flotilla will also include passenger boats carrying up to thirty thousand flag-waving members of the public, and the spectacle will be further enhanced with music barges, boats spouting geysers and pyrotechnic barges spitting smoke and daytime fireworks. There will also be specially constructed elements like a floating belfry, its chiming bells answered by those from riverbank churches.
Downriver of London Bridge, there will be a gun salute and the flotilla will pass through a spectacular avenue of sail made by traditional Thames sailing boats, oyster smacks, square riggers, naval vessels and other impressive ships.
Thames piers, riverside roads and bridges will be closed to traffic and there will be up to fifty big screens distributed along the route to allow members of the public to enjoy the pageant from all possible vantage points.
For families and others with children, Battersea Park will hold a day-long programme of music, traditional funfair and artist-led Jubilee-themed entertainment.
April 5, 2011