A RECORD-BREAKING diamond jubilee river pageant made history today with the biggest number of boats ever recorded at a single event.
Guinness World Record officials verified 670 boats joined the flotilla on the Thames, although the number including support boats is thought to be closer to 1,000.
Red fireworks exploded from the top of Tower Bridge to mark the end of the pageant after the Royal College of Music Chamber choir sang the national anthem, undeterred by the rain dripping down their faces.
The bad weather forced the cancellation of a planned flypast of a Fairey Swordfish biplane and nine Royal Navy helicopters in diamond-formation, but it did not dampen the spirits of the public who waited for hours in the drizzle.
Across the country, jubilee lunches brought six million people together, organisers said. There were tens of thousands of gatherings, with the luckiest receiving surprise visits from royals such as the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke of York and princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
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The biggest lunch took place in Greenwich, south east London, with up to 10,000 people sitting down to eat. There were jubilee celebration meals, too, in 70 countries across the globe.
Back on the Thames, the crowds – an estimated 1.2million of them according to organisers and police - waiting along the banks of the Thames could hear the flotilla long before they could see it .After a 41-gun salute outside the Tower of London, a floating belfry weighing 12 tons finally came into sight just after 4pm, its chiming bells echoed by churches along the Thames.
The rowed boats were at the front of the flotilla. Leading them was the £1m Gloriana, a vessel built specially for the jubilee and rowed by an 18-strong crew including the Olympians Sir Matthew Pinsent and Sir Steve Redgrave.
In true British fashion, the rain began again in earnest as hundreds of oarsmen reached the end of their five-mile journey down the Thames, giving a huge surge of colour to the otherwise grey day. Gondolas in blue and white, a Celtic longboat carrying a man dressed as Henry VIII and women dressed as 15th-century maidens, a pink boat rowed by breast cancer survivors and a skiff dating back to 1880 filled the river.
When the bascules of Tower Bridge were raised the flag-waving spectators, many of whom had waited by the riverside since dawn, whooped and cheered.
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The Queen, who had been enjoying English bubbly on board the royal barge, was dressed in a white Angela Kelly dress designed specially for the occasion. She beamed despite the weather turning ever worse.
Prince William in his naval uniform and Kate, wearing a knee-length red Alexander McQueen dress, seemed at ease as they chatted on board.
Next came the motorboats, the pleasure boats, narrow boats and barges, all moving steadily past Tower Bridge.
In the royal squadron came the great and good. The royal barge, decked out with 10,000 flowers and serving English wines, carried the Queen, Prince Philip, the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. Other guests included Carol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate, and Sir Donald Gosling, the Queen’s multimillionaire friend who used to own NCP car parks.
The Duke of York and his daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie were on board the vessel Havengore with Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. The Princess Royal and her husband, Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, travelled on Trinity House No.1 Boat while the Duke of Kent and Princess Alexandra boarded the RNLI Diamond Jubilee.
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Many of the bridges remained closed to traffic and in many cases reserved for people from a list of chosen charities.
On the roof of the Royal Festival Hall performers using semaphore flags spelled out the message “Happy Anniversary Elizabeth”. Later, a large puppet of a horse from the show War Horse appeared on the roof of the National Theatre and caused the Queen to giggle and point.
Guinness World Records officials armed with binoculars and check lists diligently clocked up the number of boats. Just before 5pm they declared it a record – the largest river flotilla ever recorded. While there were huge flotillas in the days of Charles II, the biggest boat parade previously recorded was 327, set last year in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Despite the weather, crowds along the riverside huddled under umbrellas and stayed put, clearly a more hardy bunch than those in Downing Street who decided to move their jubilee street party indoors.
Yet many struggled to get to the pageant, airing their frustration on social media website Twitter. They complained that rail operators failed to provide enough trains to get spectators into London comfortably. Many services into the capital were packed, with passengers unable to board overcrowded carriages.
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Elsewhere there was another hold up – a Chinese junk that had been making its way to Britain to take part in the river pageant had to call ahead and make its excuses. A river pageant spokeswoman explained: “It got stuck in a traffic jam in the Suez canal.”