Shoestring Shipping Line

The rehabilitation people gave Clough Blair exactly two hours in which to find a cargo ship for sale, to muster a complete crew of ex-servicemen, and to think up a case for a loan with which to buy the ship and launch a shipping line.

He was successful. He and his mates defied the marine experts, the financial magnates, the professional pessimists - and the Big Brothers of the overseas-owned shipping lines, and launched their little Tasman Shipping Company into prosperous waters.

They carried trans-Tasman frozen cargoes, they picked up coastwise freights, they earned the respect and co-operation of shippers and wharfies and port authorities - and, the less friendly interest of the Big Boys in the game.

They assembled a fleet of little ships that were not sleek, photogenic ocean greyhounds - their ships looked, in fact, more like a rabbiter's pack of mixed breeds - and they prospered, breaking all records for the quick turnaround of cargo ships in New Zealand ports. Things were going well . . .

Then the shoestring snapped. In all good faith the Company had put its trust in certain astute and plausible gentlemen in Singapore, and had so become pawns in a game that was too big, too murky . . .

This is no hard-luck story. Clough Blair is not the man to blubber over spilt milk. What he writes in this book is the gay, adventurous story of a handful of tough Kiwi mariners who laughed in the face of the experts who said it couldn't be done , and proved them wrong.

Readers of this book will enjoy the fun - they may also find reason to be thoughtful about the overseas-owned shipping lines on whom New Zealand's prosperity depends . . .

- from the inside cover.

Published by A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1967.
All copies are in reasonable second-hand condition - binding tight, pages largely clean bar minor foxing.
Dust jackets slightly shelf-worn, minor chipping, scuffing, otherwise intact.