A tribute to Tenby’s lifeboat men has been unveiled at the town’s RNLI station after a local artist embarked on creating a unique wood carving from an Ash tree - prized for its strength and healing qualities.

‘Sandy’ is the creation of international artist Robert Raschke who came to be after his wife Helen found a big trunk of an Ash tree on the Paragon beach in Tenby on a stormy September day in 2018.

She was so excited and told her husband about the find, and this was the beginning, and the start of ‘The Lifeboat’ man project, as Robert was fascinated from the first moment, and knew that he had to do a big sculpture from it.

“The waves, the ocean currents brought this piece of tree to my beach, from North Wales, from Ireland…or Canada who knows?” said Robert.

“It was a long time in the water. The tree bark was glossy, very heavy roughly about 2.5 tons!”

After Robert examined the tree, he found that the forms and the drawings of the bark reminded him of faces, beards and different figures, which made a click in his brain, and an idea was born!

“An old Lifeboat man, a Coxswain from the 19th Century, with Southwester rain hat, with beard, big hands holding binoculars, a cork life vest, growing out of a mighty piece of Ash tree,” he envisaged.

Then something strange happened, an unbelievable story, as heavy storms and waves crashed on the coast with 9.5 meter tides, and the following day, the tree had gone, only for 16 days later Helen to find it again on the shore, but not at the same place, it had landed 400 meters from the Paragon beach, and Castle beach was its new home.

Help from Robert’s friends - Doug Waters, Harry, Darren, the driver Dean/Spud, Alec, Rob, Richard, Dave, made it possible to get this heavy Ash tree to Robert’s studio, where for months it lay, drying out, before Robert embarked on the next two steps, the shaping and the raising of the tree, before carving the end result.

“Tenby Lifeboat Station would like to give a huge thanks to Robert for this amazing sculpture, which will surely bring a lot of attention and interest,” said Ben James from the RNLI crew.

“We’d also like to extend a massive thanks to Katherine John of Morris Brothers in Tenby for the use of their pallet truck, which transported the sculpture from Robert’s studio to Castle Square.

“Thanks also to Mr. Danny Henson of Saundersfoot Bay Leisure Park whose mini digger was extremely useful in getting around Castle Hill to put ‘Sandy’ in his new home outside the Lifeboat Station,” he added.