Penarth Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboats | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | The Esplanade, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, CF64 3AU |
| Telephone | 02920 709099 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
On the north shore of the Bristol Channel just south of Cardiff, Penarth runs a fast Atlantic 85 and a D-class from the Esplanade, covering a busy stretch of estuary with one of the greatest tidal ranges in the world and strong inshore rips. A lifeboat first served here in 1861; after a long closure, an inshore station reopened in 1980.
The Bristol Channel has always been a hazardous stretch of water, with an extreme tidal range and very strong currents close inshore. A lifeboat was first stationed at Penarth in 1861 by the RNLI, serving the approaches to Cardiff and the Penarth Roads.
The station was closed in 1905, its work taken over by other local stations for the next seventy-five years.
With the post-war growth of boating and watersports, an inshore lifeboat station reopened at Penarth in 1980 with a D-class, kept at first in a former shop and launched across the beach. The present boathouse and slipway opened in 1995, equipped for a B-class lifeboat, and the station now runs an Atlantic 85 alongside the D-class. Much of the work is generated by the estuary’s fast tides and mud, and by walkers and anglers cut off by the rising water along the Penarth and Lavernock shore. In a notable modern service, Helmsman Simeon Rabaiotti received a Framed Letter of Thanks in 2002 for saving a man cut off by the tide, the inshore boat veered down through a heavy three-metre swell amid rocks.
