RNLI lifeboat: New £2.7m Norah Wortley for St Davids

The RNLB Norah Wortley will be kept on a mooring until a new boathouse is built

A new faster and safer £2.7m RNLI lifeboat is arriving in Pembrokeshire.

The RNLB Norah Wortley, which was funded by a bequest, is designed so that the impact on the crew is reduced as it crashes through waves.

It is one of four new RNLI lifeboats in Wales, with the others at Porthdinllaen, Moelfre and Mumbles.

"Bringing the new lifeboat home to St Davids for the very first time will be an incredibly proud moment for me," said St David's RNLI coxswain Dai John.

"This is a fantastic boat and I have every confidence that she will serve us well and help us to save more lives off the Pembroke coast."

The boat will arrive later on Monday, and has been funded through the donation of Diane Mary Symon, who died in 2010, when she was living in Newton Abbot, Devon. It will be dedicated to a member of her family at a naming ceremony at a later date.

Mr John said the new boat was designed to be safer and was also faster than the old boat.

The volunteer crew travelled to Poole to undertake familiarisation training at the charity's RNLI college to get to grips with the new vessel.

The new Tamar class will replace the Tyne class lifeboat Garside, which began service at St Davids in 1988.

The Garside was launched 329 times, saved 79 lives and rescued 339 people.

Planning permission is being sought to build a new boathouse for the new lifeboat at a site in St Justinian, near St Davids.