Large crowds gathered in St Davids on Wednesday 13 October to mark the centenary of the Gem lifeboat disaster when the lifeboat Gem was wrecked and three of her crew drowned.
St Davids was bathed in sunshine and the seas were still, which was in sharp contrast to what it was like 100 years ago.
Present-day Coxswain David John explained: ‘The Gem had been launched in a north easterly gale with rough seas in the early hours of the 13 October 1910 following the sighting of distress flares in Ramsey Sound. It took the crew about an hour to row the mile across the Sound to the ketch Democrat which had three men on board.
‘With great difficulty the lifeboat got alongside the ketch and took off the crew. Under oars, the lifeboat was unable to make headway against the wind and tide and the lifeboat was swept onto the Bitches Reef and wrecked.
‘Fifteen men survived by clinging onto the wave-swept rocks for over 12 hours until they were rescued by two boats from St Davids. However, three of the crew – Henry Rowlands, James Price and Coxswain John Stephens – did not survive. Their bodies were recovered the next day.’
The St Davids all-weather and inshore lifeboats launched at 9am to lay a wreath near to where the accident happened.
At the same time, officials from the station placed a wreath on the memorial marking the three graves at St Davids cemetery.
At noon a service of remembrance was held at St Davids Cathedral with the bishop of St Davids, Wyn Evans, giving the sermon.
Around 60 relatives of the 1910 crew and rescuers had gathered amongst the congregation to mark the centenary.
A minute’s silence was held and then a bell rang out three times, once for each of the lifeboatmen that had been lost.
Sir Robert Hastie, Vice-President of the RNLI, unveiled a new plaque in the Memorial Gardens on the Cross Square in St Davids that has been erected to remember those that died and the circumstances in which they lost their lives.
