PULLING POWER

Meet the man tasked with retrieving (usually ruined) vehicles from the notorious tides of Black Rock Sands

- By ANDREW FORGRAVE Countryside and Tourism Editor [e-mail]

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 and then cruelly snatching it away.

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, and then 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) recently.

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.