New Quay Lifeboat Station
| All-Weather Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
| Launch Method | SLARS |
| Address | Glanmor Terrace, New Quay, Ceredigion, SA45 9PS |
| Telephone | 01545 560311 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
In the seaside town of New Quay on Cardigan Bay, the station runs a Shannon-class all-weather lifeboat and a D-class, covering a stretch of the Ceredigion coast popular with sailing, fishing and watersports. A lifeboat has served New Quay since 1864, and its crews hold four Bronze Medals for gallantry.
New Quay’s exposed bay had seen a spate of wrecks — at least ten in a decade, with six vessels lost off the town in a single night during the Royal Charter Storm of October 1859. In response, a lifeboat station was built on the town beach in 1864 at a cost of £130.
A new boathouse and slipway followed in 1903. The station’s last sailing lifeboat, the William Cantrell Ashley, retired in 1948 after 41 years — the last sailing lifeboat in the RNLI fleet — and was given to the Outward Bound Sea School at Aberdovey.
An inshore lifeboat joined the all-weather boat from 1967, and a new boathouse was completed in 1992. After a strong local campaign to keep an all-weather lifeboat at New Quay, the station received a Shannon-class boat in 2023, working alongside the D-class across Cardigan Bay. The crew answer the bay’s leisure traffic, its fishing boats and the casualties of a coast of cliffs, caves and fast tides.
