Some complain that Britain’s borders are porous and admit too many potential enemies, but this sceptr’d isle is all too well defended against its friends.

Two Germans and a Frenchman who made a perilous nine-hour Channel crossing on a mission of peace and European cooperation were arrested on their arrival in Kent and held in police cells for ten hours.

The trio, on a craft made from six oil drums and a sheet of wood, were delivering a message of goodwill in a bottle to the burghers of Folkestone from its sister towns of Boulogne and Zweibrucken. But the coastguard took a dim view. Instead of meeting a welcoming committee at Folkestone harbour, they were arrested on suspicion of endangering life by crossing one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes without permission from either the French of British authorities.

Gunter Ludvig and Bernard Druker, town councillors from Zweibrucken, and Claude Allan, a councillor from Boulogne, were further accused of sailing with no lifesaving equipment, out-of-date distress flares and a radio that could not be tuned to the coastguard Channel 16 emergency wave-band.

The rafters told coastguards that they had tried to obtain permission before setting sail from Boulogne, but their phone wouldn’t work.

Lynn Dockar, of the Boulogne and Shepway Cooperation Association, said: “They were making a very symbolic journey. They wanted to show their support for European solidarity.”

After being released yesterday without charge, the trio presented their goodwill message to George Bunting, chairman of Shepway District Council. He said: “We are very pleased to welcome people from Europe and across the world. We would advise our friends to use a more orthodox form of transport next time they visit us.”

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