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THE ORPHEUS DISASTER.By Thayer Fairburn. Paperback, 1.06kgs, 210mm x 219mm, 244 pages, black and white photographs.
This book, originally published in 1987, was the first full and true account of New Zealand's greatest sea disaster. The book was the lifelong work of Thayer Fairburn. It is a monumental work in any sense of the term. He carefully and painstakingly researched every aspect of the wreck, following leads around the world through libraries and survivors' records. The journey was long, over sixty years of research and collation, resulting in a book with a wonderful array of maps, charts, illustrations and photographs never before seen in publication. The Orpheus Disaster is a tribute to a sea historian and his relentless search for the total picture that doomed the grand vessel that fateful day in 1863 on a massive sandbank just outside Auckland's Manukau Harbour .
NZ$60.00 + delivery.
THE REMAINS OF THE BOYD DVD.By New Zealand Underwater Heritage Group. DVD. Duration 35 minutes.
December 1809, the sailing ship Boyd was attacked and destroyed while at anchor in Whangaroa Harbour, New Zealand. We take a look at what remains of the ship after 200 years under water, and begin the search for other remains outside the area of the wreck site.
With modern technology it's now possible to search and hopefully locate the ship's anchors and guns that may still lie undiscovered in the harbour's muddy bottom.
This is the beginning of on-going research to document the history of one of New Zealand's oldest and historically significant shipwrecks.
NZ$25.00 + delivery.
THIS BARREN ROCK.By Sylvie Haisman. Paperback, 0.28kg, 135mm x 210mm, 238 pages, black and white illustrations.
Imagine one woman, forty-seven men and a three-year-old boy, shipwrecked on a tiny sub-Antarctic island. For seven months they eat albatross and burn penguin skins for fuel, before a passing whaler picks them up.
The Scottish clipper Strathmore sailed from London in 1875, laden with gunpowder, iron and immigrants. Wrecked at night in furious seas, half her passengers struggled ashore to the bare, inhospitable rocks of the remote Crozet Islands. There they remained stranded, struggling to survive the bitter southern winter, given up for lost by their families and friends.
Over 130 years later, award-winning writer Sylvie Haisman rediscovered her ancestors' epic adventure. Drawing on their journals, faded photographs and letters, she unearthed a story of gallant sailors, orphaned children, cruel hunger and debilitating cold.
The Strathmore shipwreck was a sensation in Victorian times. Now this compelling story of courage, endurance and the determination to survive will move and inspire readers all over again.
NZ$36.00 + delivery.
DISASTERS AT SEA.By Dag Pike. Paperback, 188mm x 245mm, 192 pages, colour photographs.
Disasters at sea come in all shapes and sizes, and are a voyage into the unknown for everyone involved.
From trawlers pulled under by submarines, to the notorious 1979 Fastnet race, ferry disasters and boats run down in open water, Dag Pike looks at all types of disasters at sea and gives a gripping analysis of what went wrong, how it was dealt with and what lessons were learned. Covering accounts of yachts, motorboats and commercial vessels running into difficulty, each chapter includes sections on rescue, survival and an account from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, who monitor accidents at sea all over the world. Dag Pike's vast experience as captain, navigator and journalist, as well as his personal experience of being rescued 10 times and rescuing others 9 times, adds keen personal insight as well as drama.
This book challenges many preconceived ideas, and provides a thought provoking account of why things go wrong at sea as well as paying tribute to the courage and daring of many of those who have survived.
NZ$60.00 + delivery.
SHIPWRECK - A History of Disasters at SeaBy Sam Willis. Hardback, 260mm x 300mm, 191 pages, full colour photographs and drawings.
In Shipwreck, maritime expert Sam Willis traces the astonishing tales of ships that have met with disastrous ends. Bringing the events of the time to life, he describes the acts of courage, moments of sacrifice and episodes of villainy that occurred as the sea threatened.
Complemented by 100 colour paintings, photographs and maps, his enthralling narrative also sheds light on the causes and consequences of each sinking and how, often, the discovery of the wreck has added a twist to the story.
NZ$63.00 + delivery.
DESTINATION DISASTER: The Sinking Of The Mikhail Lermontov DVD.By Ninox Collecter's Edition. Approx 90 mins DVD.
It begins with the promise of the holiday of a lifetime, climaxes in a tragic international incident and ends with a web of human betrayal and suffering.
In this vivid picture of the ship's last voyage, viewers are carried along with the ship onto the rocks and into they urgency of the ensuring rescue. Combined with amateur video footage of terrified passengers preparing to disembark, actual radio transmissions paint the picture of a desperate and confused situation.
The story of the sinking is a haemorrhaging controversy, but the most compelling viewing comes with the emotional reflection of the passengers who fought for their lives and the heroes who worked day and night to rescue them. The investigation which follows features a multinational cast of characters from St Petersburg in Russia to the High Courts of Australia into the tiny community of Picton New Zealand.
A very emotional story, and the pilot still will not explain his actions.
NZ$31.00 + delivery.
THE WHITE SWAN INCIDENT, The Shipwreck That Could Have Sunk a Government.By Mike Warman. Pbk, 170mm x 240mm (A4), 73 pages, monochrome photographs and drawings.
This is a book about a New Zealand shipwreck. On 29 June 1862 the S.S White Swan was holed by a rock while steaming down the North Island coast between Napier and Wellington. A number of New Zealand's leading politicians and civil servants were among the passengers. A heavy loss of life would have been calamitous for the government and the administration of the colony. Miraculously, Captain Allen Harper managed to find the one safe spot on a notoriously rugged coastline to run the ship ashore on Wairongo Beach, at Uriti Point on the Wairarapa coast. All the passengers and crew managed to scramble ashore without injury.
The author's fascinating and thoroughly researched book provides the background to the ill fated voyage, with the vessel steaming to take passengers to their places in the first sitting of the New Zealand parliament.
He describes the likely reason for the shipwreck; how the passengers fared ashore; the irony behind their rescue; the mysterious enquiry in Wellington; and the subsequent histories of a large number of the passengers on board.
NZ$25.50 + delivery.
THE PROVING GROUND. By G. Bruce Knecht. Pbk, 110mm x 180mm, 283 pages, monochrome photographs.
The worst disaster in recent ocean racing history began on Boxing Day 1998, a perfect summer day on Sydney Harbour, in New South Wales, Australia.
One hundred and fifteen boats set out from Sydney but only forty-three reached the finish line - in Hobart, Tasmania. In the cycloe that shredded the fleet seven boats were abandoned, five sank, six sailors died and fifty-five needed to be pulled from the water.
This book is a "page-turner" of the highest order and it is more than one of the most compelling adventure stories written in years. It is an incisive look at the forces that continue to draw men who have triumphed on land to risk everything at sea.
NZ$25.00 + delivery.
FATAL STORM, The 54th Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. By Rob Mundle. Pbk, 130mm x 200mm, 380 pages, colour photographs.
This deals with the same topic as Proving Ground above. The Sydney to Hobart yacht race is one of the world's major sporting events. In 1998 it became one of the world's major sporting disasters. Six sailors tragically lost their lives and countless others suffered injuries, and numerous yachts sank or were badly damaged. The subsequent search and rescue operation was one of the most phenomenally accomplished peacetime efforts the world has ever seen.
In this fully updated edition to mark the 10th anniversary of the tumultuous race, Rob Mundle, one of Australia’s leading journalists and yachtsmen, tells this story of challenge and survival with compassion, vigour and understanding.
NZ$31.00 + delivery.
WAKE OF THE INVERCAULD.By Madelene Ferguson Allen. Hardcover, 198mm x 268mm, 256 pages, colour photographs.
Robert Holding, a young English adventurer, was only 23 when in 1864 he was shipwrecked with 19 others on the windswept, inhospitable Auckland Islands in the sub-Antarctic Ocean south of New Zealand. By the time he was rescued a year later, only two of his shipmates were taken off the island with him, the rest having perished from starvation and exposure. This is the extraordinary story of how the three survived, and why their companions did not.
It is also a gripping tale of discovery. Holding's great-granddaughter Madelene Ferguson Allen had her relationship to the sailor revealed when she was researching the history of her birth family. Subsequently she learned of the existence of his account of the shipwreck and enforced stay on the Aucklands, and she decided to retrace her forebear's footsteps.
As the Auckland Islands are one of the world's last great "untouched" wildlife sanctuaries, getting permission to visit from New Zealand's Department of Conservation is no easy task. However, eventually the author was granted access and she conducted her research at first-hand on the islands in 1993 and 1995.
In this wonderfully readable tale of adventure, wildlife encounters and life aboard a sailing ship in the roaring sub-Antarctic seas, Madelene Allen has brought an obscure piece of maritime history to life. Robert Holding's chronicle is interwoven with his great-granddaughter's story, as she visits the original home of the Invercault in Scotland, follows the young sailor's trail from England, through Australia, to the tragic encounter with the bleak Auckland Islands, and finally to his resting place in Canada.
NZ$50.00 + delivery.
THE GENERAL GRANT'S GOLD.By Madelene Ferguson Allen and Ken Scadden. Paperback, 152mm x 235mm, 192 pages. Monochrome photos.
The wreck in 1866 of the General Grant in the desolate sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands is one of the world's great nautical mysteries, a story that still tantalises and thrills. When the ship was crushed in a cave beneath a sheer cliff face, a few crew members and a handful of passengers managed to escape in a lifeboat. For more than two years they lived a hand-to-mouth existence on a nearby island before they were rescued. This story is extraordinary in itself, but soon compelling legends spread that the ship had sunk with a fabulous hoard of gold from the Victorian goldfields. For almost 140 years, expeditions and bounty hunters have searched for the ship and her elusive cargo. In the relentless seas of the Auckland Islands, it has been a soul-destroying endeavour. Locating the vessel has been difficult enough; finding the gold has proved impossible.
In this book the authors tell the full story of the voyage, the shipwreck, the plight of the castaways and the search for the gold. At this distance in time, separating the facts from the legends is difficult, but the authors have scrupulously researched the events of the shipwreck and examined every subsequent search for the gold. The story is more remarkable than fiction, a tale of heroes and cads, heartbreak and loss, hope and despair, hunger and greed. As it has betwitched so many in the past, so it will haunt you long after the last page is turned.
NZ$35.00 + delivery
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