'Mimosa' was requisitioned along with many other pleasure boats in 1940 for 'Operation Dynamo' and, after being provisioned and fuelled at Dover, left under the command of Lieutenant Commander Dixon for three trips to the beaches off Dunkirk. It was to be 57 years before her Dunkirk history was revealed after careful research by her present owners, Colin Messer and Jane Percival who felt that she had a 'history'.
Immediately after Dunkirk 'Mimosa' was chartered (for ?21 per month) as an Auxiliary Patrol Vessel and had a name change to 'Ocelot', thereby hiding her contribution to the evacuation. The name 'Ocelot' remained with her when she finished war service and was retained when registered for the first time in 1951, 16 years after she was completed at Thornycroft's yard at Hampton-on-Thames. She was one of four identical hulls completed there, two returned from Dunkirk whilst the other two did not survive the war years.

Information courtesy of the Association of Dunkirk Little Ships.

Seen at Tower Bridge.