ANCESTORS of Europe's oldest Chinese community were honoured in Liverpool yesterday when 100 hand-painted wooden boats were launched on the River Mersey.

Hundreds of people from the Chinese community gathered for the colourful event, co-ordinated by arts and culture organisation Chinapool and the Wah Sing Chinese Community Centre in Duke Street.

Youngsters performed a Chinese Unicorn Dance to send good luck to the boats as they were launched from a Mersey ferry boat off New Brighton.

Chinapool's Moira Kenny said the boats, painted by members of the city's Chinese community, represent the returning of Chinese souls to their homeland.

She added: "This is a celebration of Chinese ancestry but young people will also be performing a unique Chinese Unicorn Dance as part of the proceedings to bring good luck.

"The boats are a metaphor for the people who came here via the river.

"The symbolic gesture of taking the elderly and young to the river is to take them back to their roots, for the younger generation to respect their heritage."

It is hoped the boats will drift with the tide and end up scattered across the world.

An exhibition of modern Chinese arts was held at the Pier Head and families were invited to a big picnic before taking part in creative workshops. The whole event was recorded on video by a helicopter to capture a birds-eye view of the boats leaving the city.

Cllr Warren Bradley said: "Liverpool has such a colourful history that it is only right we remember our ancestors. This will be a particularly beautiful way to pay tribute to loved ones."

Liverpool's Chinatown is the second oldest outside of the homeland, after San Francisco, and is also home to the largest Chinese Arch in Europe, which stands 14 metres over the entrance to Chinatown.

The trade links between China and Britain via the ports of Shanghai and Liverpool were key in the founding of a Chinese community within the city during the mid-to-late 1800s. The first vessel from China to Liverpool arrived in 1834, the start of a booming trade in silk and cotton wool.

With the establishment of the Blue Funnel Shipping Line in 1866, Chinese sailors came to the city.

Those who decided to stay in Liverpool settled in Cleveland Square, an area close to the docks, and the Chinese community was born.

Yesterday's event was part-funded by the Liverpool Culture Company's Creative Communities initiative with help from Mersey Ferries and Liverpool John Lennon Airport.