Criccieth Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboats | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | Lôn Felin, Criccieth, Gwynedd, LL52 0DN |
| Telephone | 01766 522810 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
On the northern shore of Cardigan Bay, just east of the Llŷn Peninsula, Criccieth runs a fast Atlantic 85 and a small Arancia-class inshore boat, covering the north-east of the bay and the shallow Glaslyn and Dwyryd estuaries. A lifeboat has served here since 1853, and the station’s crews hold five Silver Medals.
The station was established as Portmadoc Lifeboat Station in 1853 by the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society; after the RNLI took over the Society’s stations in 1854, the lifeboat operated from Criccieth, though the station kept the ‘Portmadoc’ name until it was renamed Criccieth in 1892.
The crews earned five Silver Medals in the station’s early decades, and performed many notable services — among them the 1885 rescue of seven sailors clinging to the wreck of the barque Spanker near Harlech, after the lifeboat had waited hours on a rough sea for daybreak.
The all-weather station closed in 1931, when a motor lifeboat was placed at Pwllheli, but reopened in 1953 to deal quickly with casualties in the north-east of Cardigan Bay. It now runs an Atlantic 85 and, since 2010, an Arancia-class inflatable — Criccieth being the first RNLI station to operate one — adopted to work the shallow waters of the Glaslyn and Dwyryd estuaries where the larger boat cannot reach.
