Qualla: Trearddur Bay Lifeboat Station

Trearddur Bay Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Eric Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 20 May 2021, the wind off Holy Island reached gale Force 9 from the southwest - sustained 47 miles an hour, gusts well past 60, breaking seas of three to four metres. A female surfer caught out by the rising weather was being driven by waves and current toward the Cod Rocks, a low reef that has been killing swimmers and small craft at Trearddur Bay for as long as anyone has lived there. She had become exhausted; the surf was forcing her under the water repeatedly. The Trearddur Bay RNLI Atlantic 85 lifeboat launched into conditions at the operating limit of the class. What happened next put the helm, Lee Duncan, into the small group of British lifeboat crew to have been awarded the RNLI Silver Medal - and made the rescue the first ever in which the Atlantic 85, a workhorse design in service since 2005, earned its highest honour.

Image: Eric Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

Trearddur Bay Lifeboat Station: An Idea From the Sixties

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff Buck, CC BY-SA 2.0. The RNLI's inshore lifeboat programme began in 1964. The service had spent more than a century building bigger, slower, all-weather boats for the long deepwater rescues - the lifeboats of legend, with their oilskinned crews and gold medals. But by the post-war years, the rescue w...

Image: Jeff Buck | CC BY-SA 2.0

Trearddur Bay Lifeboat Station: Two Boats, Constant Service

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 瑞丽江的河水, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today the station operates two inflatable lifeboats. The bigger Atlantic 85, Hereford Endeavour (B-847), has been on station since 2010 - rigid-hulled, twin-engined, capable of 35 knots, designed to work in conditions and at distances the smaller boat cannot. The smaller D-class,...

Image: 瑞丽江的河水 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Trearddur Bay Lifeboat Station: Medals and the Cod Rocks

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joadl, CC BY-SA 3.0 at. The Cod Rocks have a long entry in the station's casualty log. In 1971, John Burns and Edmund Williams won RNLI Bronze Medals for rescuing two people clinging to a capsized dinghy on those same rocks. In 2001, Christopher Pritchard was honoured for pulling three people off a caps...

Image: Joadl | CC BY-SA 3.0 at