The new £2.7 million 16m Tamar lifeboat Kiwi arrived at her Anglesey home of Moelfre on 4 March to a warm welcome from hundreds of local people and well-wishers who lined the coast path to watch as the new lifeboat was led into the bay by the boat she is to replace, the 47ft Tyne Robert and Violet.
The new lifeboat is named Kiwi after Reginald James Clark, a New Zealander who died in June 2004 and left £2.2 million to the RNLI in his will. Mr Clark was a merchant seaman, who was rescued by a lifeboat after his ship was torpedoed during World War II.
The station’s volunteer crew spent a week training on the new lifeboat at the RNLI Lifeboat College in Poole before setting off for their new station on 1 March 2013. The training passage to their station involved calls at Brixham, Falmouth, St Mary’s, Rosslare Harbour and Arklow.