Lot 2048

Description

Royal National Lifeboat Institution, silver medal (VR), inscribed on edge 'Mr David Roberts Voted 11th Dec 1890'. Very good.

7 November 1890: In a north-westerly gale and mountainous seas, the Padstow schooner 'Ocean Queen' was wrecked on rocks below the quarries at Penmaen Head, Llandulas, Denbighshire. She was first seen labouring heavily with her top-sails flying in shreds, completely out of control. After she went ashore with seas breaking clean over her, her crew of four men took to her rigging. It was not possible to launch the Llandulas lifeboat, probably because most of the local populace were at the scene of the wreck. As the Llandudno lifeboat was out on another service, some quarrymen managed to obtain a small boat, which they carried to a point opposite the wreck. Seven attempts to launch her through the vicious surf were unsuccessful, but the eighth brought success and all the crew were taken off. In the course of the successive attempts, the boat's crew was changed frequently.