The man who pulls drowned cars from North Wales beaches

North Wales Live

22-06-2025

Few places can turn dreams to nightmares so quickly as a notorious beach in Gwynedd. Black Rock Sands has a habit of delivering seaside fantasy but then cruelly snatching it away again.
This year the ruined bodies of once pristine vehicles have been piling up quickly on the sand. Caught out by rapidly rising tides, they've been swiftly overwhelmed, left to bob gently on the waves until the waters retreat again.
When misfortune strikes, Ian Pattinson and his vehicle recovery team are often quick to respond. By then, there's often little that can be salvaged other than soggy possessions and a bit of pride.
Already this year, Ian has retrieved three vehicles from the beach at Morfa Nefyn, near Porthmadog. He takes a dispassionate approach to the process, reserving judgement over incidents that are easy pickings for online sneerers.
His firm, North Wales Recovery, was back out at Black Rock Sands (Traeth y Greigddu) last weekend. After spending a night in the sea, a white VW Beetle convertible needed retrieving once the tide had receded.
'If vehicles float out on the tide and along the beach, they're more difficult to recover,' said Ian. 'They're much heavier, being full of water, and once the electrics go, the steering wheel and brakes are often locked.
'By then, they're not salvageable and they'll go for scrap. Even the plastic parts will rot away once submerged in saltwater.'
Five days earlier, North Wales Recovery was in the Cambrian mountains to rescue an old Defender stuck in mud. Ian had just returned from hauling out a VW motorhome at Black Rock Sands.
Last weekend, another motorhome was swallowed by the sea. When pictures and videos were posted online, it was claimed that 4x4 drivers on the beach watched on and did little to help.
It was a rumour soundly rejected. The vehicle was initially towed out by jet ski riders, only for it to get stuck again later. Two more attempts were made to retrieve it, and a whip-round was reportedly held amongst beachgoers to help pay for professional recovery.
Ian wasn't involved in this incident but he has sympathy for those who attempt to self-rescue. Often, however, it can make a bad situation worse, he said.
'I can understand why people try to get themselves out of trouble,' he said. 'There's the cost element and the wait for recovery vehicles to arrive. If the tide is rolling in, they may have left it too late.
'Some incidents occur at night when help may not be available. But, 100%, self-rescue can make matters worse - you can dig the vehicle deeper into the sand and cause more damage.
'Even if proper towing rope or straps are used, it can cause problems. Once there's tension on the rope, you can't undo it. The stranded vehicle can't reverse to slacken the tension and the towing vehicle can't risk going forward in case it also gets stuck.'
Usually one of his Landrover Defenders can do the job, especially if the tide has retreated and water has drained from cars.
For tougher jobs, he has a special trick up his sleeve: a Mercedes-Benz Unimog, whose portal axles and selectable differential locks give it extreme off-road performance. It also has a powerful winch.
'It's virtually a tractor,' he said. 'It has plenty of power and traction, which is needed to overcome the suction that happens when vehicles are out with the tide.'
Black Rock Sands' ominous-sounding name chimes with its menacing reputation for swallowing unfortunate vehicles. Already this year, casualty numbers are approaching double figures.
Neither have the victims been cheap run-arounds, with Audi, Mercedes and VW frequent among the marques to suffer.
But the beach differs from others only by virtue of being one of the few in Wales to permit drive-ons. There is a feeling that ignorance of the tides is the chief culprit: apocryphal tales abound of tourists returning to resorts and demanding to know why beaches have been removed.
Ian suspects the recent spate of strandings at Morfa Nefyn is coincidental. A few years ago, it was Colwyn Bay beach that was busy claiming Landrovers and other vehicles.
In recent years, cars have also been submerged at Talacre, Conwy Marina and Red Wharf Bay. It's just that Black Rock Sands has more people around to film negative outcomes, ostensibly to serve as warnings to others.
Like Icarus and his wings, owners of boats and jetskis sometimes take their transport too close to danger. Usually this is on shorelines where they've paid launch fees: Ian is commonly called out to Abersoch on the Llŷn Peninsula. Often the jet ski community will help each other, he finds.
Understandly, he's reluctant to risk his own vehicles to save others, so he will always make considered judgements, especially when it comes to people's safety.
But Ian will go to the edge of what's possible, such as the car he extracted from thick black mud almost a mile off Southport, Merseyside, last year.
Retrieving a stricken vehicle from a beach is only half the job, he notes. 'People see us drive away and think that's the end of it for us,' he said.
'It's not! When we get back, there's hours and hours of cleaning to do. Otherwise, the salt would cause a lot of damage.
'After recovering the VW convertible, the Unimog clean-up alone took two hours. Wires on the winch had to be extended and cleaned individually.'
Once washed, the vehicles are stowed for the next beach call-out. Usually it's only a matter of time.... Sign up for the North Wales Live newsletter sent twice daily to your inbox
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