Rhyl lifeboat station

link_to_french_translation link_to_mandarin_translation Rhyl lifeboat station, Marine Parade

Rhyl’s first lifeboat was established in 1852 by the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Society. The boat could launch to the sea or the river Clwyd via doors at end of the boathouse. A year later, the lifeboat capsized with the loss of six crew, commemorated by a memorial on Rhyl promenade.

rhyl_lifeboat_station_with_lifeboat_morgan.The RNLI took over in 1854 and supplied a tubular, double-hulled lifeboat named Morgan in 1856. It remained at Rhyl until 1893. It’s visible inside the boathouse in the old photo (courtesy of the RNLI).

As Rhyl’s tourism trade boomed, a second lifeboat station was established in 1878 with a self-righting lifeboat. The lower photo (courtesy of the RNLI) shows the lifeboat Jane Martin, which was at Rhyl No.2 Station from 1888 until the station closed in 1899 – two years after a new main boathouse was built.

Rhyl made history in 1962 with the first ever rescue by a lifeboat of people from a hovercraft. The lifeboat removed three crew, minutes before the kerosene-laden hovercraft crashed into the promenade. For this rescue the RNLI gave a Silver Medal to coxswain H Campini, Thanks of the Institution Inscribed on Vellum to each of the seven crew and head launcher Dennis Jones, Framed Letters of Thanks to the nine shore helpers, a collective Vellum for the boathouse, and a special Letter of Appreciation was sent to the Honorary Secretary.

In 1967 an inshore lifeboat station was set up at Rhyl with a D Class lifeboat. The present boathouse was opened in 2002 by the Duke of Kent, the RNLI’s President.

In 2008 Jean Frost, manageress of the Rhyl lifeboat souvenir shop, received an MBE (Member, Order of the British Empire) for services to maritime safety. The MBE was awarded to crew member Paul Frost in 2010 and cox Martin Jones in 2016.

rhyl_lifeboat_jane_martinAn audience at the Pavilion Theatre was surprised at the end of a show in 2017 when Brendan O’Carroll, writer and leading actor of the TV sitcom Mrs Brown’s Boys, announced he would donate £10,000 to launch the appeal for a new Rhyl lifeboat. The new Shannon-class boat arrived in 2019.

The lifeboat service in the UK is provided not by government but by the RNLI, a charity which relies on donations from the public. Since it was established in 1824, the RNLI is estimated to have saved c.140,000  lives. It employs some crew members but most, 40,000 in total, are volunteers who leave their work,

Postcode: LL18 3YP    View Location Map

RNLI on HistoryPoints.org

RNLI website

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Footnotes: More Rhyl rescues

1973 - Bronze Medal to Helmsman Donald Jones for rescue of two boys cut off by tide

1974 - Thanks of the Institution Inscribed on Vellum to Helmsman Donald Jones and crew members Richard Perrin and James Quinn for rescue of a boy stranded on the west face of the Little Orme

1990 - A Special Framed Certificate presented to the station for services during the Towyn floods (click here for this story). The crew helped more than 200 people to safety

2001 - A Framed Letter of Thanks to Mechanic Martin Jones for the rescue of four people from a motor boat. The station received a collective letter of commendation