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.