Qualla: Penlee lifeboat disaster

Penlee lifeboat disaster: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N p holmes, CC BY-SA 3.0. Trevelyan Richards. Stephen Madron. Nigel Brockman. John Blewett. Charles Greenhaugh. Kevin Smith. Barrie Torrie. Gary Wallis. Those are the names. Eight men from a Cornish fishing village - the coxswain, the second coxswain, the mechanic, the assistant mechanic, the crew - who launched the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's Solomon Browne into the worst storm to hit the south-west in living memory on the evening of 19 December 1981. They were volunteers. They left wives and children waiting in cottages along the harbour at Mousehole, and they went out because a ship called Union Star was being blown helpless across Mount's Bay toward the rocks. They got four people off. Then the lifeboat's lights vanished from the radar, and from the night, and they were gone.

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Image: N p holmes | CC BY-SA 3.0

Penlee lifeboat disaster: The Union Star

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. The MV Union Star was a mini-bulk carrier registered in Dublin, on her maiden voyage from IJmuiden in the Netherlands to Arklow in Ireland with a cargo of fertiliser. Aboard were five crew - Captain Henry Morton, Mate James Whittaker, Engineer George Sedgwick, and Crewmen Anghost...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee lifeboat disaster: Rescue 80

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris j wood, CC BY-SA 4.0. The coastguard at Falmouth summoned Royal Navy helicopter Rescue 80 from RNAS Culdrose - a Sea King of 820 Naval Air Squadron flown by Lieutenant Commander Russell Smith, an American on secondment from the United States Navy, with Lieutenant Steve Marlow, Sub-Lieutenant Kenneth D...

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Image: Chris j wood | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee lifeboat disaster: Eight Men

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Richards chose his crew that night with deliberate care. He did not take more than one man from any one family. Charles Greenhaugh was the landlord of the Ship Inn in Mousehole. Kevin Smith was twenty-three, the youngest, only weeks back from sea. Nigel Brockman's son, Neil, want...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee lifeboat disaster: The Other Lifeboats

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Word went up the coast. The Sennen Cove Lifeboat tried to round Land's End to help and could not make headway. The Lizard Lifeboat came out into Mount's Bay and searched in vain; when she finally returned to her slipway there was a serious hole in her hull. Every soul aboard the ...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee lifeboat disaster: The Lights of Mousehole

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. The British public's response was immediate and overwhelming. Donations poured in for the families - so many that when the government initially tried to tax them, the outcry was furious enough to force a reversal. Mousehole, famous for its harbour Christmas lights, has switched t...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0