Qualla: Penlee Lifeboat Station

Penlee Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. By eight in the evening on Saturday 19 December 1981, the Solomon Browne was already in seas larger than her crew had ever seen. The wind was gusting at 90 knots - Force 12, off the top of the Beaufort scale - and rolling waves 60 feet high through Mount's Bay. The coaster MV Union Star had lost engine power eight miles east of Wolf Rock, drifting helpless towards the cliffs with a crew of five and three of the captain's family aboard. A helicopter from RNAS Culdrose had tried to lift them off and failed; the masts of the Union Star were whipping too wildly. So the Penlee lifeboat - 47 feet, wooden hull, eight volunteer crewmen - launched into the storm to do what only a lifeboat could do, which was come alongside and let people jump. At 9:21 pm the lifeboat radioed Falmouth Coastguard: "We've got four off." That was the last anyone heard from any of the sixteen people involved.

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee Lifeboat Station: Before the Modern Station

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit N p holmes, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first lifeboat in Cornwall was bought for Penzance in 1803 but lay unused and was sold in 1812. A permanent lifeboat returned to Penzance in 1853 under the new Royal National Lifeboat Institution, and in 1908 the boat - the Watson-class Elizabeth and Blanche - was moved acros...

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Image: N p holmes | CC BY-SA 3.0

Penlee Lifeboat Station: Trevelyan Richards and His Crew

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. The coxswain on 19 December 1981 was Trevelyan Richards, 56, a Mousehole man, second-generation lifeboatman. The seven who launched with him: Second Coxswain Stephen Madron, 35; Assistant Mechanic Nigel Brockman, 43; Emergency Mechanic John Blewett, 43; and crewmen Charles Greenh...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee Lifeboat Station: The Day After

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, created using Ordnance Survey data, CC BY-SA 3.0. Within twenty-four hours of the disaster, enough men from Mousehole had volunteered to form a new lifeboat crew. Some were widowers of the night before. Some were brothers and sons of the lost. They served the station continuously through the days of national mourning and the fun...

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

Penlee Lifeboat Station: The Move to Newlyn

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 4.0. After 1981 the Penlee Point station remained in use for another two years while the RNLI planned its successor. In 1983 a new, larger, faster all-weather lifeboat called Mabel Alice was acquired, and a fresh station was built on the harbourside at Newlyn. The lifeboat there is ke...

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Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee Lifeboat Station: Other Services, Other Lives

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Penlee disaster overshadows everything, but the station's nearly two centuries of service include hundreds of other rescues. In April 1947, the lifeboat W and S put out into 30-foot seas to recover the crew of a vessel that had run aground after retirement at the end of the w...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Penlee Lifeboat Station: Mousehole in December

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Visit Mousehole on any winter evening and the harbour Christmas lights are reflected in the water - lobster pots strung with bulbs, an angel hung from the breakwater, a Bible quoted in coloured lamps on the village hall. They run from early December into early January. They are s...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0