Fair Winds and Rough Seas - The Story of the Holm Shipping Company

Please note: this copy has a covering over the dustwrapper which is in poor condition, but nice inside.

The little ships of Holm have been familiar visitors to every port of New Zealand ever since 1880, when Swedish-born Ferdinand Holm bought a share in the barque Malay. He and later his sons - notably Captain Sydney Holm - and his grandson Captain John Holm, built up a fleet of ships that traded not only in New Zealand's coastal waters but also across to Australia, to the Pacific Islands, and ventured into the Antarctic. This book tells the story, and it is a brave one. The Holms had to face and beat keen competition and economic recessions as well as the built-in hazards of wind and weather. Their `blackest year' was 1959, when Holmburn caught fire at Lyttelton and two lives were lost; and when Holmglen was mysteriously lost with all hands off Timaru. Other severe losses included the sinking of Holmwood in 1940 by a German raider, and the wreck of the Holmbank in Peraki Bay in 1963...