Friday 3 April 2015

New Quay Lifeboat. who are we?

New Quay lifeboat has a blog!!



Firstly I'd like to welcome you all to our brand new blog,  This is the best place to catch up on the latest events and shouts of our station. Here is where we will be posting updates on exercises and anything going on at New Quay station.  We will be posting regular photos and video clips of our boats and crew.

We are classed as a discovery station, based in a quiet fishing & tourist town 23 miles south of Aberystwyth.  Our boats are a Mersey class all- weather lifeboat and D-class inshore lifeboat, each manned by a volunteer crew:  Head Coxswain Daniel Potter has served the station for over 20 years; a dedicated shore crew, including Trevor Evans who has completed 48 years service; full time mechanic Ben Billingham, who ensures the boats are in full working order and ready to go to sea at a moment's notice; not least a dedicated group of volunteer crew, who have other jobs away from the lifeboat - some have there own trip boats, others are builders, carpenters, electricians and even boat builders.  Not everyone on the crew comes from a maritime background but, with amazing training from the RNLI, we are fully equipped to rescue those in need day or night in any weather! 

New Quay has produced a long list of notable Lifeboat Coxswains.  Perhaps the most famous of whom have been Arden Evans and his son Winston, who between them served 49 years after the Second World War.  Winston Evans was awarded the British Empire Medal in 1985, following a dramatic rescue off rocks near Llanrhystud.  Winston continues to live locally and has a close association with the town's fishing industry.  He was followed as coxswain in 1994 by Daniel Potter, another local man who continues in the post and is the great-nephew of Frederick Shayler, a distinguished Coxswain for 17 years in the 1920's and 30's.  Add to this a long line of committed volunteers, both crew and shore, and the station has a great deal of which to be proud.

All this said none of this work would be possible without the generous donations from the Public, whether from a couple of coins in buckets at the station to fundraising events, to legacies left to us by kind people who feel an affinity with our cause.  Lots of people ask if we get paid for going on shouts.  I always reply that we don't, but knowing the effort and time spent training and potentially, or actually, saving someone's life is beyond any monetary reward. 

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