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CUNARD'S THREE QUEENSBy William H. Miller. Paperback, 250mm x 226mm, 120 pages, full colour photographs..
2008 was a magical year for Cunard. For the first time, the line had three Queens in service: Queen Elizabeth 2, Queen Mary 2 and Queen Victoria. Queen Elizabeth 2 retired during the year, sailing for Dubai on 11 November, while Queen Mary 2 had reached her fifth anniversary as the largest ocean liner afloat and Queen Victoria entered service. On 13 January 2008, all three liners were together for the first and last time in New York. After a successful first world cruise for Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2's twenty-sixth and final world cruise, all three ships rendezvoused in Southampton on 22 April for the last meeting of the three Queens.
Bowing out after a successful farewell season that saw her sail full on every voyage of the year, QE2 left Southampton amid the biggest fireworks display seen in the port since the advent of Queen Mary 2 five years earlier.
No other ships envoke the magic that Cunard's Queens have done since Queen Mary entered the service in May 1936. Since then, a Cunard Queen has reigned the ocean wave and for one short year, three Queens reigned supreme across the world's oceans. William H. Miller brings together a fantastic selection of images, with informative text, telling the story of Cunard's three legendary modern Queens.
NZ$70.00 + Delivery
THE NEW CUNARD QUEENSBy Nils Schwerdiner. Hardback, 210mm x 267mm, 192 pages, full colour and black & white photographs..
Since her launch in 1967 the venerable Queen Elizabeth 2 has acquired the status of floating legend, and for three decades she was believed to be the last of her kind, a cherished and beloved remnant from the age of great ocean liners. So the announcement on the eve of the new Milennium that Cunard would build a new liner for the transatlantic service caused widespread interest. The Queen Mary 2 would not have been a true Cunarder had she not embodied a number of superlatives and, sure enough, when she entered service in 2004 she was the longest, widest, highest and most expensive passenger ship ever built, at once an expression of maritime nostalgia and the embodiement of modern technology and design.
To further build on the success of these two ships Cunard commissioned the Queen Victoria, launched in December 2007. Sporting the company's classic livery - black hull, white superstructure and red funnel - the ship is to be employed exclusively for luxury cruises from her homeport of Southampton.
With his facinating mixture of maritime history and contemporary analysis, the author describes the history of Cunard Line, the first years in service of the Queen Mary 2, the conception, building and maiden voyage of the Queen Victoria, before saying farewell to the QE2, retired to Dubai as a floating hotel in November 2009. Here is both a lavish tribute to the world's best-known shipping line and a comprehensive and fascinating examination of it's most famous cruise liners.
NZ$135.00 + Delivery
BUILDING THE BIGGEST- From Ironships to Cruise Liners By Geoff Lunn. Paperback, 173mm x 248mm, 160 pages, full colour and black & white photographs..
In 1843 Brunel's ironship Great Britain was launched, becoming the forerunner of the great steel-hulled ships of today. yet she was tiny compared with the transatlantic liners of the early 1900s as ship-owners vied for the top spot in terms of speed, elegance and size. Liners such as Mauretania and Titanic were later followed by two giant Queens and France's liner Normandie. If the innovative engineers of the Victorian age guided the shipping industry from sail to steam, wood to iron and later to steel, then the twentieth-century invention of the computer took ship construction to entirely new concepts. Massive passenger vessels, equipped with remarkable facilities, efficient machinery and capable of meeting the highest stadards of safety, can now be built from keel to funnel in no more than two years. Construction techniques have changed beyond recognition, as have methods of ship design and, indeed, the very roles that these floating resorts are asked to play. Today Royal Caribbean's sister ships Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas are the first passenger ships in history to exceed 200,000 gross tons and are promoted as offering a third more space than any other cruise vessel afloat and measuring seventy times the size of the first Victorian passenger-carrying ironship. For the foreseeable future, at least, these two giant floating cities will hold the accolade of being the biggest passenger ships of all time.
NZ$56.00 + Delivery
SUPPLY SHIP OPERATIONS - A HANDBOOK.By Victor Gibson. Paperback, 170mm x 243mm, 283 pages, colour photos..
The third edition of this book considers the changes in the working environment and the ships doing the job, since the first edition was published in 1991. It contains practical guidance on many of the activities undertaken by anchor-handlers and platform ships. Retained are chapters on ship-handling, the carriage of cargo, working with semi-submersibles and jack-ups, towing and emergencies, and there are new chapters on operations, accidents and safety. The text is supported by 100 colour photos and 15 diagrams. It is a soft back book 17 cm x 24 cm, and is intended primarily to assist those entering the supply vessel business at all levels.
NZ$95.00 + Delivery
LUXURY LINERS – Their Golden Age and the Music Played Aboard.By e.a.r. Books. Hardback, 290mm x 290mm, including 4 music CD’s.
Luxury Liners presents the largest and most impressive steamers associated with luxurious, sophisticated transcontinental travel - from the beginning of the 19th century until today – in beautiful contemporary and vintage photographs.
Images of the leisurely life on the first-class deck, breathtaking interior photographs and pictures documenting the launching of the most important ships take you on a journey back in time, back to the era when travel was considered an art form.
The compact discs provide the musical background of the time, from elegant bar music to swing, tango and Charleston as played by the great salon orchestras. Reminisce!
NZ$100.00 + Delivery
GONE...By Bill Cumming. Hardback, 153mm x 216mm, 360 pages, black & white photographs and illustrations.
In 1875, just when steamships were set to overtake sail-power, Robert & John Craig risked everything to launch a novel 4-masted, square-rigged ship - christened County of Peebles.
Shockingly high losses of ships and crews at sea had caused Parliament to crack down on excessive mast-heights and sail areas. Falling within the 'new rules', this revolutionary all-iron 'clipper' proved to be an astounding success. Over a decade, eleven fabulous sister-ships followed - named after Scottish counties. "R&J Craig" became one of the most esteemed shipping firms in Britian, and was recognised around the world as Craig's "Counties".
Prudently finding reliable agents in India, the Craig brothers started with a second-hand wooden barque in 1860. They sent ships to East India and Java. Glasgow was a world centre for innovative ship design, and the Craigs purchased the best sailing ships they could afford, from prominent shipbuilders on the River Clyde.
Keeping a busy order book, and tight control of expense, this highly entrepreneurial (yet low profile) family generated cash and built-up funds to buy progressively larger vessels. R&J Craig was an early adopter of the telegraph to ensure high utilization of their ships. The firm became known as the 'Scottish East India Line'.
Captain Robert Craig - himself an early 'Extra-Master' - recruited the most experienced shipmasters he could find. An astonishing outcome of the 4-mast rig was to prolong the usefulness of windjammers for 50 years more than anyone had expected.
One of the 12 famous ships, County of Roxburgh, was possibly the fastest merchant wind-ship ever created - its dilapidated hull still exists. The fate of each of Craig's once glorious 4-masters has been re-discovered, and graphically described from the records of the men and women of that time - now forever 'gone'...
NZ$180.00 + Delivery
WANGANELLA AND THE AUSTRALIAN TRANS-TASMAN LINERS.By Peter Plowman. Paperback, 210mm x 286mm, 188 pages, black & white photographs.
This book tells the story of the trans-Tasman shipping service from the days of the earliest steam ship service to the liner Wanganella's last voyage to New Zealand in 1963.
The only Australian company to maintain a service across the Tasman Sea was Huddart Parker, who survived numerous attempts by the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand to drive them off the route in the early days. Eventually the two agreed to share the route in several co-operative agreements.
In 1961 Huddart Parker Limited ended their interest in the Tasman trade when the company was sold, but Wanganella continued to operate to New Zealand for McIlwraith, McEacharn Limited.
NZ$45.00 + Delivery
REEFER SHIPS - The Ocean Princesses.By Nick Tolerton. Hardback, 220mm X 303mm, 226 pages, black & white and full colour photographs as well as black and white plans and profile drawings
Fast and graceful, reefer ships have always stood out from the other cargo ships plying the world's sea lanes.
This magnificently illustrated book looks at the evolution of pure refrigerated ships and fruitships, and at the histories and fleets of the major owners involved in the reefer trades, including Lauritzen, Salen, Maritime Fruit Carriers, P&O, Blue Star, Geest, Seatrade, United Fruit and Fyffes.
It marks a century and a quarter of refrigerated shipping which has transformed the economies of a number of countries.
Reefer shipping has attracted innovators, visionaries, and entrepeneurs - and seen some dramatic rises and falls.
This decade there has been enormous restructuring whithin this sector and some of the most famous operators have withdrawn from reefer shipping, making the publication of this book very timely.
The contributions of West and East European and Japanese shipbuilders to reefer shipping are all looked at.
Enhancing the value of this book as an indispensable volume for anyone with an interest in merchant ships are fleet lists for the major classes and the significant designs, including the famous Drammen-built standard reefers, and an index of nearly 1000 ships.
As well as being a valuable reference book for ships in service today, this book takes a nostalgic look at the classic reefers of the 1950s and 1960s, many of them regarded as among the most beautiful merchant ships ever built.
The book includes more than 350 mostly previously unpublished black & white and colour photographs and plans and profile drawings
NZ$80.00 + Delivery
BULK CARRIERs - The Ocean Cinderellas.By Nick Tolerton. Hardback, 220mm X 303mm, 192 pages, black & white photographs.
Bulk carriers are the vital but unheralded cogs in world trade, carrying three billion tonnes of cargo a year including the shipments of ore, grain, and coal on which the world depends for steel and metal manufacturing, food production, and power generation.
This book looks at the evolution of the dry bulk carrier, the different types, the operators from famous giants like P&O and Cunard to anonymus one-ship companies in Piraeus and Hong Kong, and representative voyages.
It also examines the hidden cost of their contribution to world trade - the scandalous toll of ships (usually operated under flags of convenience) and seafarers lost which have raised more questions about thier intrinsic seaworthiness.
More than 200 bulk carriers are illustrated, ranging through the earlier vessels from Britain and Western European shipyards to the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese designs which dominate this sector of shipping today.
Hundreds of books have been written about the Titanic. This is the first book to cover the development through five decades of a ship-type which makes up a third of the world's oceangoing fleet by gross tonnage.
NZ$75.00 + Delivery
THE HISTORY OF THE WHITE STAR LINE.By Robin Gardiner. Pbk, 150mm X 230mm, 224 pages, monochrome photographs.
There are few names more famous - or infamous - in the history of commercial seafaring than White Star Line. Although to the public, the shipping line is inextricably linked to one event - the tragic loss of the Titanic on the ship's maiden voyage - White Star Line's pedigree stretched back to the mid-19th century and the boom in commercial transatlantic sailing. Even after the Titantic tragedy, the Liverpool-based company continued plying its trade until it was swallowed up by Cunard in the 1930s.
In this book, author Robin Gardiner, known for his previous bestselling and controversial books on the Titantic, has researched the history of the Titanic's owners to compile the first comprehensive account of this shipping line. Through its pages the reader will be able to discover that Titanic was not alone in being a victim of the company's cavalier seamanship, that many of the company's archives have mysteriously disappeared, that the company's ownership was labyrinthine (involving, as it did, the noted financier J.P.Morgan), and many other revelations. As the author notes in his introduction, there are few books that can incorporate items relating to Titanic, President Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Adolf Hitler, the Beatles and Jack the Ripper!
Shrouded in mystery and arguably as much a case of conspiracy as the sinking of the Titanic itself, the history of White Star Line has long merited close examination. Through the pages of Robin Gardiner's new best-seller the mists of a century and a half are swept away to provide a detailed account of this most tragic shipping line.
Was NZ$50.00 + Delivery
Now NZ$ 35.00 + Delivery.
TRANSATLANTIC LINERS IN PICTURE POSTCARDS.By Robert McDougall & Robin Gardiner. Hardcover, 210mm X 260mm, 128 pages, colour prints.
With the recent introduction into service of the new Cunard liner, the Queen mary 2, the age of the transatlantic liner is set for a revival. Brunel's magnificent paddle-steamer Great Western, launched in 1838, was the first great transatlantic liner, and the start of an era in which ship design rapidly developed and ever-larger iron-hulled, screw-propulsion liners were built to carry the rapidly growing numbers of passengers to and from the New World. By the late 19th century the golden age of tranatlantic liners was truly underway, when passengers could travel in luxury from Britain, other European countries and the USA on classic liners competing for the 'Blue Riband' - the fastest transatlantic crossing. The names of the Lusitania, the Hamburg, the France, the Normandie and the United States are redolent of a long-lost age, before air travel fundamentally altered the economics of transatlantic travel after World War 2.
In this book, Robert McDougall and Robin Gardiner, both experts on the subject of the history of transatlantic shipping, have co-operated to produce this pictorial tribute to the golden age of travel. Drawing upon Robert McDougall's extensive collection of historic postcards and other memorabilia, both colour and black and white, with text and captions by Robin Gardiner, this book is a fascinating archive of the classic liners of this era.
Was NZ$85.00 + Delivery
Now NZ$50.00 + Delivery.
AUSTRALIAN CRUISE SHIPS.By Peter Plowman. Paperback, 210mm X 290mm, 112 pages, colour photos.
During the past thirty years cruising has become a popular form of holiday for an increasing number of Australians.
This book provides details of many of the ships that cruised out of Australian ports from the early 1970s up to 2000, and all the cruise liners to have been seen in local waters since 2001, as well as taking a look ahead to the liners scheduled to come here later in 2007 and into 2008. It is the author's hope that turning the pages of this book will bring back many happy memories to cruise travellers, and hopefully inspire those who have not yet ventured out to sea to take the plunge and discover the joy of cruising.
The ships are listed in the order in which they entered the local cruise market. As the pages proceed it will be noted that over the years the size of the liners seen in Australia has steadily increased. In the early days cruise liners were usually no more than 25,000 gross tons, but in the summer of 2007-08, the Australian cruise trade will be serviced by three liners exceeding 70,000 gross tons, something that would have been thought impossible even five years ago.
NZ$40.00 + Delivery
THE SITMAR LINERS.By Peter Plowman. Paperback, 240mm X 308mm, 287 pages, monochrome and colour photos.
This story of the Sitmar Liners is written primarily from an Australian perspective, but it also covers the general development of the company and its operations throughout the world.
Societa Italiana Trasporti Marittimi SpA, which would always be better known by the acronym SITMAR, was founded in April 1938, the fourth shipping company to be started by Alexandre Vlasov, and survived for fifty years. SITMAR started off in a very small way, initially operating a pair of small cargo ships in the Mediterranean coal trades. Both these ships were lost to the company during the Second World War, so when peace returned, Alexandre Vlasov had to start SITMAR again from scratch. Gradually he managed to build up a new fleet, comprising both cargo ships and passenger carriers.
In the late 1940s SITMAR entered the passenger trades by obtaining contracts from the International Refugee Organisation to transport displaced persons from European ports to Australia and other countries. The first SITMAR passenger ship to come to Australia was Castelbianco, which was only one of many ships contracted to carry displaced persons, but the SITMAR vessels involved in this trade were noted for the superior quality of the food they provided, and having better accommodation.
From these small beginnings, SITMAR developed into a major passenger shipping company during the 1950s, offering regular voyages between Europe and Australia for both migrants and fare-paying passengers. Some of their ships also served for several years on the route from Europe to Central and South America, and for a while they were also engaged in the summer tourist trade across the North Atlantic, from Europe to ports in Canada and the United States of America.
By 1957 the services to Central and South America, as well as the summer service on the North Atlantic, had been abandoned, and all but one of the cargo ships sold, enabling SITMAR to concentrate their attention on the Australian passenger trade. This state of affairs lasted until the early 1970s, when the company entered the highly competitive North American cruise market. In this way, SITMAR Cruises was born, and the name was later used by the Australian operation when it abandoned the liner trades and switched its focus to full time cruising in 1974.
The sale of SITMAR Cruises to the P&O Group in July 1988 was totally unexpected, but the SITMAR name did survive for a few more years in Australia, where the new opeation was known as P&O-SITMAR Cruises until 1991, when it was renamed P&O Holidays. However, the link between Australia and the former SITMAR Cruises liners continues to this day.
Today, the SITMAR name may be gone, but the memories of their ships and the wonderful service they gave lingers on in the minds of many thousands of happy passengers. This book has been written for them, as much as for anyone with an interest in passenger liners. In order to bring the SITMAR history right up to date, the stories of the former SITMAR ships under their subsequent owners and names are told in details. As well, there is also the story of the introduction of a "new SITMAR", Silversea Cruises, marking the return of the Vlasov Group, now renamed V-Ships, as a major player in the current world cruise market.
NZ$90.00 + Delivery
CROSSED FLAGS.By W.A.Laxon, I.J.Farquhar, N.J.Kirby and F.W.Perry. Hardback, 216mm X 303mm, 196 pages, monochrome photos and line drawings.
This book is the history of the New Zealand Shipping Co. and Federal Line - prime operators between the U.K., N.Z. and Australia. There are over 150 ships listed (correct to July 1997) in the book, most pictured.
NZ$85.00 + Delivery
MIGRANT SHIPS to Australia and New Zealand 1900 - 1939.By Peter Plowman. Softback, 210mm x 285mm, 192 pages, black and white photos.
This book examines those ships and shipping companies that transported migrants to Australia and New Zealand from 1900 to 1939, the outbreak of World War II; where they were built, by whom, their tonnage, dimensions, service speed and propulsion, when and where they were launched and the history of their migrant-carrying voyages.
Peter Plowman is a Sydney-based maritime historian and author with several books published over four decades.
NZ$50.00 + Delivery
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