Qualla: Padstow Lifeboat Station

Padstow Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Benjamin Evans, Public domain. The Doom Bar sits across the mouth of the River Camel like a trap. It is a shifting sandbank, sometimes underwater and sometimes visible at low tide, and for at least three centuries it has caught ships sweeping in toward what should be a safe harbour. Padstow's lifeboat station exists because of this sandbank. Founded by a public meeting in November 1829 - funded by Lloyd's of London, local subscription, and a national institution that would later become the RNLI - the station was built to launch boats into the very water that was killing the ships. The cost has been borne in lives. Thirteen Padstow lifeboat crew have died in two separate incidents trying to save others.

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Image: Benjamin Evans | Public domain

Padstow Lifeboat Station: Penny per Ton

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Larrylobster, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first lifeboat at Padstow was built in 1827, a small double-ended boat by a local builder. It cost £50 - £10 from the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, the rest from local subscription. Two years later the Padstow Harbour Association for the Pr...

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Image: Larrylobster | CC BY-SA 3.0

Padstow Lifeboat Station: Albert Edward and the Georgiana

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 6 February 1867 the lifeboat Albert Edward went out into a gale to reach the schooner Georgiana, bound from Rouen to Cork and caught at the worst possible point of her passage. The lifeboat capsized. Five of her crew - Daniel Shea, William Intross, Thomas Varco, Andrew Truscot...

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Image: Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data | CC BY-SA 3.0

Padstow Lifeboat Station: Peace and Plenty, 1900

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jschwa1 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 11 April 1900 the ketch Peace and Plenty of Lowestoft dragged her anchor in a gale near the Camel estuary. The Trebetherick Rocket Brigade - working from shore with a line-throwing rocket - rescued five of her crew, but three drowned. The lifeboat Arab was anchored beside the ...

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Image: Jschwa1 at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Padstow Lifeboat Station: Trevose Head

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Atkin, CC BY-SA 2.0. Silting at Hawker's Cove and across the Doom Bar made the old station increasingly impractical. Lifeboats had often been hauled overland by horse-drawn carriage to launch sites better suited to the weather, with farmers lending the horses. By the 1960s the silting had won. Hawker...

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Image: Tony Atkin | CC BY-SA 2.0

Padstow Lifeboat Station: Why People Still Volunteer

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rarb, CC BY 3.0. The RNLI runs on volunteers. Padstow's coxswain Alan Tarby received the Thanks of the Institution Inscribed on Vellum in 2007 for a long double service on 25 June - the lifeboat first towed in a damaged yacht, the Coresande, then was diverted to rescue a small boat called Fly tha...

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Image: Rarb | CC BY 3.0