JUTTING OUT boldly into the Irish Sea, open to winter gales from most points of the compass, the beautiful Lleyn Peninsula of North Wales has its share of hazards to shipping. Over the years many vessels have been wrecked on its shores and its people have been called upon to play a gallant part in the annals of saving life at sea.

To read the lists of service of the Lleyn lifeboat stations is to trace a single thread through the pattern of social history. First there was trade under sail. The establishment of the four present lifeboat stations—Criccieth (first established at Porthmadog in 1853 but moved to the better launching site of Criccieth in 1854), Porthdinllaen (1864), Abersoch (1869) and Pwllheli (1891)—was a reflection of growing industry on shore and the resultant increase of trade at sea, both coastal and overseas. Porthmadog was one of the main ports from which slate from the Welsh mountain quarries was shipped to all parts of the British Isles and to Europe. Porthdinllaen was a lively port with its own shipbuilding yards.

Pwllheli had been the main port for the area in earlier days and small craft traded in other havens along the coast.

For vessels entirely dependent on sail, onshore gales were the great danger. For boats on passage in the days before modern navigational aids, hugging the shore, a rising, shifting wind could change the coastline from a comforting help to pilotage into a treacherous lee. For vessels at anchor.

a change of wind direction during the passing of a storm could be equally disastrous.

At that time the lifeboats, were, of course, pulling and sailing —Pwllheli's first lifeboat, incidentally, was one of the few steel tubular lifeboats—and to battle through those onshore gales to go to the help of ships in distress called for tremendous strength and determination.

The sailing coaster bound for Porthmadog, approaching through Cardigan Bay, would leave to starboard St Patrick's Causeway (Sarn Badrig), a shoal extending 11 miles offshore, while to her port lay the rocky south-west extremity of the peninsula, Bardsey Island lying off its tip. Banks, shoals and bays which have earned such names as Devil's Tail, Devil's Ridge or Hell's Mouth, tell their own story. If, making for the shelter of St Tudwal's in fog or bad weather, the master mistook his landfall he might find himself in Hell's Mouth in very truth; embayed by an onshore wind, with no escape, his only hope in the stoutness of his anchor and its cable. The reference in today's Admiralty Pilot reads: 'Forth Neigwl, or Hell's Mouth, is entered between Trwyn Cilan and Trwyn Talfarach, 4'k miles WNW. There is a strong indraught into the bay, which is open to the prevailing SW winds; the latter quickly cause a heavy sea . . . " St Tudwal's Roads, off Abersoch, offered a safe anchorage in all but easterly gales. There the sailing vessel could await a fair tide or wind, but the approach to Porthmadog itself was through a shoaling bay, across a bar subject to changes both in depth and position and along a channel with banks also liable to move.

Save for the port of refuge at Porthdinllaen, the north-west run of the peninsula along the southern shore of Caernarfon Bay presents an inhospitable coast to shipping bound for Menai Strait or Liverpool. From the Pilot once again: 'Caernarfon Bay is entered between Bardsey Island . . . and Holy Island, 32 miles N. The SE side of the bay is formed by the NW coast of Lleyn Peninsula which is bold, rocky and mainly steep-to, rising inland to mountainous country of which Snowdon, the highest peak and sometimes covered by cloud, attains an elevation of 1,083m (3,555ft) 10 miles inland . . .' A look at just some of the records of service of the last century fills in the picture a little: March, 1861: the ship Danube, laden with cotton from New Orleans bound to Liverpool, aground on St Patrick's Causeway in a westerly gale. December, 1863: the schooner Economy, from Middlesbrough to Barmouth with railway chairs, parted from her anchor and ran ashore south of Criccieth in a west-north-westerly gale. December, 1869: the ship Castilian bound from Quebec to Liverpool with timber, aground on the south side of Porthmadog Bar. February, 1875: the American ship Edward O'Brien on a voyage from Mobile to Liverpool, on Morpha Bychan Sand in fog. January, 1877: the schooner Annie bound from Dublin to Bristol flying distress signals while riding at anchor in St Tudwal's Roads, her master ill, her cable eventually parting. May, 1879: Off Porthdinllaen, the schooner Jane Anne dragging her anchor and a large barque embayed. April, 1886: the smack Endeavour bound from Newport for Abersoch with a cargo of coal, parted both chains; the schooner Eliza Bell, coal laden from Liverpool to Abersoch, parted one chain. October, 1889: the barque Inveresk, for Liverpool from Nova Scotia, running under bare poles direct for the east end of St Patrick's Causeway. January, 1895: the ketch Peter Varkevisser, Bound from Porthmadog for Cardiff with slate, foundered near Penrhyn Du Point. June, 1898: the schooner Miss Hughes from Caernarfon laden with'slate for London, dragging her anchors and drifting towards the rocks at Trwyn Nefyn . . .

Those were just some of the calls Peninsula: Produced from portion of BA Chart No. 14/1 with the sanction of the Controller HM Stationery Office and of the Hydrographer oj the Navy.

made upon the lifeboatmen of the Lleyn Peninsula. Many seamen were brought to safety; sometimes the master's wife and his children would be among the rescued. Sometimes a crew taken off a boat riding heavily to her anchor would be put back on board when the storm had abated and the danger was over.

The days of sail passed. With the coming of steam came the freedom for ships to choose their course regardless of wind direction, and more power to withstand its strength. Improved navigational equipment made it easier for them to stand off from the land.

Although there were still calls on rough winter nights to ships on the main shipping routes, the pattern of rescue work was changing, too. The number of calls became fewer and, with the coming of a motor lifeboat at Pwllheli in 1931, the 43 ft Watson William MacPherson, Porthmadog/Criccieth and Abersoch lifeboat stations were closed. A motor lifeboat, the 45ft Watson M.O.Y.E., had already been stationed at Porthdinllaen; she arrived in 1926 after having been exhibited at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.

The early harbingers of today's summer pleasure craft were appearing before the second world war. There is mention of small private fishing boats as well as the occasional coaster.

Porthdinllaen lifeboat launched to help a small sailing boat in 1933; Pwllheli lifeboat launched to a disabled yacht manned by three RAF officers in a moderate gale during the spring of 1939. And then war came.

Time and time again in the next few years Porthdinllaen or Pwllheli lifeboats launched to search with RAF rescue craft for an aircraft, often a trainer, reported crashed in the sea; but these were sad years and, even if sometimes wreckage was found, it was seldom possible to save the airmen.

Peace—and with more free time and better roads and motor cars, more and more people discovered what wonderful holidays awaited them on the Lleyn Peninsula. The slate trade came to an end at Porthmadog, in the 1950's but by then there were yachts and motorboats to take the place of the coasters. (They say that you can still see stacks of slate under the water, standing intact, marking the sites of earlier wrecks though the boats have crumbled away. Stacking was a highly skilled job; if the slates were stacked too tightly they split, if they were stacked too loosely they moved.) Families came to holiday at Criccieth, Pwllheli and all round the coast; there was bathing and boating and cliff climbing for them to enjoy. The need for greater lifeboat cover became apparent in the early 1950s, and indeed, after a boating tragedy, urgent. Up to that time Pwllheli lifeboat had lain afloat in the outer harbour, but silting of the bar at the harbour entrance restricted launching at very low water.

So, in 1953, the 46ft Watson Manchester and Salford XXIX, which had been on station since 1943, was replaced by a lighter, housed carriage lifeboat, the 35ft 6in Liverpool Katherine and Virgoe Buckland, which could be launched either into the river or direct into the sea over the beach. Pwllheli's present lifeboat is another Liverpool, Anthony Robert Marshall, which went on station in 1972 but the boathouse is now being converted ready to receive a 37ft Oakley.

In the same year, 1953, Criccieth lifeboat station was reopened, the old lifeboathouse being repurchased, a new slipway built, and the 35ft 6in Liverpool Richard Silver Oliver installed.

Most of the launches in the next years were to sailing dinghies, small motor boats or bathers—services in shallow water where speed can be vital. So when inflatable lifeboats, quick to launch and fast on the water, were introduced into the RNLI fleet, one ILB was sent to Pwllheli in 1964 in support of the offshore boat, and another ILB was sent to Criccieth in 1967; she was to take over from the offshore lifeboat the following year.

The value of offshore and inshore lifeboats working as a complementary team was well demonstrated when, in the early hours of September 1, 1977, a yacht with two adults and two children aboard ran aground inside the bar to Porthmadog Estuary in a southwesterly near gale. Pwllheli's lifeboat, Anthony Robert Marshall, was launched under the command of Coxswain William McGill but, with breaking seas on the bar reducing the depth of water in the troughs to inches, it was unsafe for her to enter the estuary.

Criccieth inshore lifeboat was called out. She successfully negotiated the rough water over the bar and, in two runs, was able to take the yacht's four people safely ashore. During this hazardous operation, Anthony Robert Marshal stood by and lit the scene with her searchlight. For this service the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum were accorded to the crew of Criccieth ILB, Helmsman James Owen and Crew Members Kenneth Roberts and Robert D. Williams.

Some years earlier, on June 25, 1972, Pwllheli lifeboat and Abersoch ILB had combined in a fine rescue of two men stranded on rocks west of Trwyn Cilan after their dinghy outboard had failed.

In a rising south-westerly wind and very rough seas the ILB had been veered down from the lifeboat, herself anchored and fully veered; a breeches buoy got across; and the casualties pulled aboard the ILB, then transferred to the lifeboat. For this service the thanks of the Institution inscribed on vellum were accorded to Acting Coxswain William McGill and Crew Member Roy Morris (who joined the ILB crew) of Pwllheli, and Helmsman Barrie McGill and Crew Member Michael Bosley of Abersoch.

Moving on west, St Tudwal's Roads, once the refuge of sailing barque and schooner, now provide summer moorings for ocean racer and family cruiser, for Abersoch has become one of the finest sailing centres in the country, presided over by South Caernarfonshire Yacht Club. The RNL1 station was reopened in 1965 with a D class ILB and now has an Atlantic 21. At the height of the summer there may be 200 to 300 yachts at anchor and 600 dinghies parked ashore. The club puts on races every weekend and Wednesday night throughout the season and in July and August there may be as many as ten starts each day of the week; dinghy races, round-the-buoys cruiser races, ocean races across to Ireland. The bay is a wonderful sailing water for dinghy championships and last year, for instance, it was chosen by the National Merlin/Rocket class for its principal meeting.

The yacht club, of course, has its own rescue boats and the ILB is not likely to be called on during the day. It is in the evening, between 1830 and 2100 that trouble usually comes. That is the time when families realise that lads who had set off round the shore, or fishing parties, have not returned. A sunny summer morning with a light northerly wind blowing offshore seems just the day to choose for a picnic on the islands; but with the heat of the day the wind will increase and there may be difficulty getting back. Hell's Mouth is still waiting for the unwary; small planing motor boats may go round the corner on a quiet day, and when the wind gets up find that they have not the power to claw back through the rough water.

There is great community spirit at Abersoch and the bonds between the lifeboat station and the yacht club are close. All lifeboat crew members are honorary members of the club. The commodore of the club, H. C. Mounsey, is a member of the Institution's Committee of Management; Bert Owen, vice-commodore of the club, is the station administrative officer. The lifeboat crew members include boatmen, hoteliers, boatbuilders and the manager of a caravan site. The auxiliary coastguard who organises cliff rescue is on the lifeboat committee.

Visitors, too, have taken their part.

Abersoch has become a favourite holiday resort for the people of Wolverhampton.

They are so appreciative of the protective role of the ILB that, in 1977 and early 1978, they raised enough money to pay for the new Atlantic 21, her tractor and boathouse.

At Abersoch they run a crew rota; three members are on duty for 24 hours starting at noon each day, and three are on standby. When the maroons go, the duty crew goes afloat, the standby crew comes down to the boathouse and the chances are that all the rest of the crew will be there too.

The service boards of Abersoch's original lifeboat station have an honoured place in the new boathouse, and, going back, Abersoch had a very close link with Porthdinllaen in those earlier days. Both the stations had as their founding honorary secretary, for their first year, the Reverend Owen Lloyd Williams, son of the Reverend James Williams and his wife Frances who were instrumental in starting the earlier Anglesey Association for Preservation of Life from Shipwreck. Owen Williams was to be honorary secretary of both Abersoch and Porthdinllaen from 1871 to 1888; he himself went out in lifeboats both in Anglesey and on the mainland and was awarded the silver medal and bar for gallantry.

Last year saw the retirement of another outstanding member of Porthdinllaen station. Back in 1937 J. E.

Roberts, MBE, a local farmer, was persuaded to take on the office of station honorary secretary and treasurer for a 12-month period; on his retirement at the end of 1977 Mr Roberts told the 'Cambrian News': 'That 12 months has extended to 40 years, and I have enjoyed every moment.' Mr Roberts, who had also served his community in many other ways and who had been a Justice of the Peace for 12 years, was awarded binoculars for his lifeboat work in 1949, a gold badge in 1964, a bar to the gold badge in 1973 and honorary life governorship in 1978.

As mentioned above, Porthdinllaen, sheltered from all but north-easterly winds, offered the only refuge on an otherwise havenless coastline and in the early part of the nineteenth century many vessels and their crews were lost in Caernarfon Bay, either on passage or caught out at anchor by a wind change.

From the time of its establishment in 1864 Porthdinllaen was a busy lifeboat station. Today the only sailing boats which put in on passage are yachts, but there are motor fishing and commercial boats as well and every week tankers bound for Caernarfon, awaiting a suitable tide to cross the bar, may be seen anchored off.

The Irish Sea can be as wild as ever.

On August 8, 1951, the 46ft 9in Charles Henry Ashley with Second Coxswain William Dop in command was called to help the yacht Waterhell and her crew of three, anchored close in to Forth Oer in a mass of breaking water. With the rising winds blowing athwart the tide and strong eddies off the coast, seas were washing over the lifeboat from every side. Unable to anchor and veer down because of the rocky sea bottom and knowing he probably would not have enough depth to turn the lifeboat inshore, Second Coxswain Dop drove in through the shallow water, bows first; came alongside the yacht's lee so that the three men could be taken off; and brought his boat out again stern first, the seas surging into her cockpit.

For this fine and courageous piece of seamanship Second Coxswain Dop was awarded the silver medal for gallantry.

Ten years later, on October 23, 1961, Charles Henry Ashley was called out in a south-south-westerly gale, approaching storm force, to stand by a Panamanian steamer drifting 10 miles south west of Bardsey Island while making temporary repairs to her broken steering gear. By the time the lifeboat had escorted the steamer on her way to Holyhead and returned to station she had been at sea for twelve hours. So bad had been the seas washing over the lifeboat that her radio had been put out of action and, with no news, such was the anxiety ashore that Holyhead, Pwllheli and Criccieth lifeboats and a helicopter had all put out to search for her. A doctor living in London, who heard on the morning BBC news that the lifeboat was reported missing, made a substantial contribution as a thank offering for her safe return.

Porthdinllaen lifeboathouse, to which alterations have recently been made ready for the 47ft Watson Kathleen Mary soon to go on station, is within the bay's western arm and has one of the longest slipways in the country.

The approach to the boathouse for the crew, first by road, and then a mile over the headland, must be among the longest, too. Nowadays the crew come by motor bicycle and the boat is launched within 12 or 15 minutes from the time the maroons are fired. Mr Roberts remembers well a war-time service when an injured officer was taken off a Dutch steamer bombed off Bardsey. He weighed 18 stone and had to be carried on a stretcher up over the headland. As he convalesced he took great interest in the station and eventually himself joined the crew when the lifeboat went out to another casualty.

Porthdinllaen's boarding boat has played a prominent part in awards services.

Back in 1925 T. A. Hooper, foreman in charge of constructing the new slipway ready for the first motor lifeboat, with three of his men, manned the boarding boat and rescued two men from a sinking punt. Mr Hooper also formed one of the crew the next Christmas Eve when the lifeboat launched to help ss Matje, dragging her anchor in a gale. In recognition of these two services the Institution presented him with an inscribed barometer.

Nearly 50 years later, on September 20, 1974, the lifeboat was launched in a south-west gale gusting to force 9 to search for two people lost from the tender of a yacht moored in the bay.

Coxswain Griffith Jones, who was on leave, nevertheless went down to the cliffs. By the lights of a Coastguard Landrover turning on the cliff, Eric, his 14-year-old son, spotted one of the men clinging to a rock about a quarter of a mile north of the boathouse. Father and son ran down and, with one of the yacht's crew, launched the boarding boat, negotiated the rough, confused seas in the channels between the rocks and brought the man to safety. The bronze medal was awarded to Coxswain Jones and an inscribed wristwatch to his son. In 1976 Crew Member Glyn Roberts was put ashore from the lifeboat in the boarding boat one August night to help a boy trapped in a cleft of rock at Porth y Nant. He had to climb 80ft up the almost vertical, loose-faced cliff to bring down the frightened boy and he was also awarded the bronze medal. The thanks of the institution inscribed on vellum were accorded to Second Coxswain John Scott, helmsman of the boarding boat.

More than 600 lives have been rescued in all by the stations of Lleyn Peninsula, Criccieth, Pwllheli, Abersoch, and Porthdinllaen, and between them they have been awarded seven silver medals and two bronze..