Map Of Shipwrecks up to 1939
Many Sailers Were Lost but Many Were Saved by the Trebetherick Coastguard Team.
The Trebetherick Coastguard Cottages and Rocket Equipment House was originally built in 1840 as a pair of semi-detached buildings for the full time Coastguards. Eventually as the RNLI grew and developed, the role of Coastguard became a part time position, the cottages were sold separately as Upalong and Tregawne. The latter was owned and run as Trebetherick Stores by the Tellam-Hockings and as of 2023 is Flo’s Deli.
On 29 December 1807, HMS Anson, trapped by a lee shore off Loe Bar, Cornwall, was driven onto rocks and between 60 and 190 men were lost. Inspired by the 1807 wreck of HMS Anson, Henry Trengrouse, Cornish cabinet maker, patented a “portable apparatus for saving lives from a shipwreck. A rocket was used to propel a thin line onto a ship (far from easy in a storm and often needing many attempts), allowing a thicker rope to be hauled on so people could then be hauled ashore in a canvas sling (breeches) above the angry waves and lethal rocks. The breeches buoy, a life-saving apparatus for rescuing people from shipwrecks, is primarily credited to British inventor Henry Trengrouse (1772–1854). While Captain George William Manby also developed a famous mortar-based rescue system in 1808, Trengrouse is generally recognized for the specific “breeches buoy” apparatus (originally termed the “Bosun’s Chair”.
1900 Peace and Plenty and Lifeboat Arab. The Trebetherick Coastguard team regularly risked their lives. In April 1900, they rescued five crewmen from the wrecked ketch Peace and Plenty as she drifted helplessly towards Greenaway and Daymer. The storm was so bad it tragically wrecked and claimed the lives of several lifeboat men sent to assist. This painting captures something of the Trebetherick Coastguards and a time when Trebetherick Point and Greenaway were houseless. The rocket team of 20 volunteers in the early 1900s is seen here in action practising firing a line from their apparatus across the fields towards Daymer beach. From the 1880s to the 1930s, the Trebetherick Rocket Apparatus was regularly brought down by a horse drawn cart for practice. The apparatus was kept in the distinctive brick building still known as The Rocket House, adjacent to the Coastguard Cottages. The team were nationally recognised when the company was awarded The Wreck Service Shield (a top national honour!) in 1939 for saving three lives from the wreck of HMS Medea.
1900 Peace and Plenty wrecked on Greenaway also Lifeboat Arab who tried to save her.
- On 11 April, with a stormy west-north-westerly wind blowing, the ketch Peace and Plenty struck Greenway Rocks. The lifeboat Arab, whilst at anchor close to the casualty, was struck by a tremendous sea that broke 10 oars and washed eight of her crew overboard. The men managed to regain the lifeboat without loss but she was wrecked on the rocks and became a total loss.
1939 The Medea - on the rocks at Greenaway
- All that remains of the wreck of the Medea in 2021
1995 Maria Asumpta - Pentire Point
