St Davids Lifeboat Station
| All-Weather Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
| Launch Method | Slipway |
| Address | St Justinian, St Davids, Pembrokeshire, SA62 6PY |
| Telephone | 01437 720215 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
At St Justinian, overlooking Ramsey Sound on the far west of Pembrokeshire, St Davids runs a slipway-launched Tamar-class all-weather lifeboat and a D-class. With Fishguard, it is one of the closest Welsh stations to southern Ireland, bearing a major responsibility for the Irish Sea and St George’s Channel. A lifeboat has served here since 1869.
St Davids juts into the Irish Sea and has long been a noted landmark for shipping. After a number of wrecks nearby, the RNLI established a station in 1869 at Porthstinian (St Justinian), with a boathouse and slipway and the lifeboat Augusta, donated by the Earl of Dartmouth.
The notorious tides through Ramsey Sound, past the rock reef known as The Bitches, brought tragedy. On 13 October 1910 the lifeboat Gem, having rescued three crew of the ketch Democrat, was herself wrecked on The Bitches; three crew drowned — Coxswain John Stephens, Henry Rowlands and James Price — while Sydney Mortimer and two coastguards rescued ten of the fifteen men cast onto the rocks.
A new station and slipway were built for the station’s first motor lifeboat, and successive boats followed. Since 1998 the all-weather lifeboat has been supplemented by a D-class, partly to replace helicopter cover lost when RAF Brawdy closed. A new £10m station opened in 2017 for the Tamar-class Norah Wortley. From here the crew answer the shipping of the Irish Sea, the tides of Ramsey Sound and the casualties of a wild coast.
