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WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW.
By Robert Hunter. Paperback, 0.64kg, 152mm x 230mm, 455 pages, black and white and colour photos. Published 2011.
The story you hold in your hand is too powerful to ignore. It is the story of the birth and early years of Greenpeace, the most important environmental activist organization to come out of North American.
Bob Hunter's narrative describes the early Greenpeacers sailing around the Pacific, bickering over internal politics, risking their lives, developing arguments about whales being sentient beings and staving off bankruptcy. Somehow they managed to start a global movement, take on both super powers of the time, save seals and whales, protest oil tankers in coastal waters and drive nuclear testing underground. No author of fiction would have dared propose a tale this amazing.
There have been many books and memoirs written by participants of these events. All are worth reading. The first, the most poignant, and the best is Warriors of the Rainbow. It is also, in my humble opinion, the most hilarious.
NZ$37.00 + Delivery.
JAGGED SEAS. By David Grant. Paperback, 1.28kg, 200mm x 270mm, 383 pages, black and white and colour photos. Published 2012.
From humble beginnings in 1879 until the time it merged with the Waterside Workers' Union in 2003 to become the Maritime Union of New Zealand, the New Zealand Seamen's Union played an integral and essential role in this country's seafaring industry.
Labour historian David Grant traverses the huge changes that have occurred in the working lives of seamen, and union practice, through these years. He portrays a union that was assertive and volatile but always steeped in never-ending struggle to win jobs for its members and to better their lives, which were often grim, particularly in the early years.
The Seamen's Union was integrally involved in the country's biggest industrial disputes - in 1890, 1913 and 1951. In these and lesser quarrels class solidarity became a byword for its existence, hewn by decades of collective struggle with kin unions against the forces of capital - alongside participation in political struggles such as opposition to the Vietnam war, nuclear ship visits and apartheid in South Africa. Nonetheless, Grant eschews the labels 'militant' and 'irresponsible', which are often levelled at the union, instead arguing that the union has in fact been moderate and considered in all of its political and industrail activity.
NZ$55.00 + Delivery.
WRIGHTY. By Alan Wright. Paperback, 0.63kg, 210mm x 297mm, 152 pages, black and white and colour photos. Published 2013.
Alan Wright's autobiography describes his early interest in boats and his chequered career of unusual occupations until he settled into boat construction, tutorship and boat design. This book also contains photagraphs and short descriptions of the yachts, power catamarans and racing anecdotes from New Zealand's most prolific designer plus his devotion to family participation.
Alan had the good fortune to enter a sunrise industry that remained buoyant until the new millennium, when faceless big business began to edge out the priceless personal touch. Spanning over 80 years, Wrighty's story is a good read, full of seredipitous experiences, humour and quite remarkable achievement.
NZ$49.50 + Delivery.
HOOKED - THE STORY OF THE NEW ZEALAND FISHING INDUSTRY. By David Johnson & Jenny Haworth. Paperback, 2.1kgs, (Hardback 2.3kgs) 206mm x 280mm, 552 pages, black and white photos. Published 2004.
This book, left uncompleted when David Johnson died, is the culmination of his lifetime of research into the fishing industry. It tells the story of how our fishing industry moved from an inshore industry where the fish were largely caught by small boats to a multi-million dollar industry where large companies now have the technology and skills to fish our 200 mile economic zone.
It shows how the early Dalmatian settlers made a huge contribution to the industry, how the industry gradually freed itself from the war time restrictions in the 1950s and how the industry was seized with a frenzy when seemingly unlimited supplies of crayfish were found off the Chatham Islands. Then as the industry became professionalised there were battles fought and won for a 200 Mile economic zone, for the right to protect and fish our own resources and to manage those resources through the quota management system. This was regarded as a world leader in conservation.
Hooked also shows how New Zealand’s fisheries resources were allocated to Maori under the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi and how the industry became controlled by some of the big companies like Sealord, Talleys and Sanford Ltd. Also covered is the development of aquaculture industry.
The book is an essential tool for all those who want details about the New Zealand fishing industry and how it has developed. It is specially priced for libraries and research institutes.
NZ$30.00 + Delivery.
Also available in hardback
NZ$50.00 + Delivery.
SWIMMING UPSTREAM - HOW SALMON FARMING DEVELOPED IN NEW ZEALAND. By Jennifer Haworth. Paperback, 210mm x 260mm, 350 pages, published 2010.
Nowadays New Zealand’s King Salmon is commonplace; it is found on every supermarket shelf and is an alternative on most restaurant menus. This fish is now a major export earner whose trade is worth in excess of $70 million a year and it provides jobs for hundreds of New Zealanders.
It is, however, a relatively new industry based on a premium species of salmon – Chinook. These salmon are not indigenous but were brought here from the McCloud River in northern California at the beginning of the 20th century. Just a few importations of ova were sufficient to establish ‘home runs’ in many South Island rivers.
The government believed these fish would form the basis of a canning industry, but the numbers were never sufficient. Instead salmon became a game fish for South Island anglers. In the 1970s there were attempts to introduce legislation to allow trout and salmon farming. Trout farming created a political furore and was dropped but salmon farming was supported by the acclimatisation societies, who could see the value of enhanced river runs developed by private hatcheries.
To establish a successful industry experimentation was needed. New Zealanders knew very little about the biology of salmon and even less about salmon farming. But through experimentation and innovative science, salmon hatcheries were able to restock rivers. Ocean ranching was tried. This followed the salmon’s natural pattern and used the sea to rear the fish. When this failed to produce the necessary returns it was abandoned.
Sea cage farming became the preferred method but there had to be considerable development and modification for New Zealand conditions.
Salmon is now a popular fish in many parts of the world. The discovery that salmon is rich in omega-3 means that it has become not just a luxury but a necessary part of our diet.
Swimming Upstream shows how innovative many early salmon farmers were; it covers their trials and problems which nearly cost them their industry and shows how they, as men and women with a passion, won through in the end.
Was NZ$50.00 + Delivery.
Now NZ$20.00 + Delivery.
EMPIRE OF THE SEAS. By Brian Lavery. Paperback, 0.49kg, 130mm x 198mm, 336 pages, black and white and colour photos. Published in 2012.
During the reign of Elizabeth I the inspirational leadership of seafarers such as Drake and Hawkins set a tiny impoverished kingdom on the path to greatness. In time, this fledgling navy transformed Britian into the most powerful empire in history, with enormous consequences for the rest of the world. There was slavery, conquest, and war on a titanic scale, but the navy also ensured that Britain would preserve her independence and unique economic and political systems. Over the next four centuries the navy made the sea and seafaring an integral part of Britain's culture and national identity.
The reasons and consequences of this dramatic progress are explored by leading naval historian, Brian Lavery, drawing on the themes raised by Dan Snow in the popular BBC2 series. Rising through the administrative brilliance of Pepys, Anson and Sandwich, and the military genius of Blake, Hawke and Nelson, the navy's successes eventually brought about the 'long peace' of the nineteenth century. But the resultant sterility in strategic thinking and complacency lead to the bruising experience of the Battle of Jutland in 1916.
NZ$25.00 + Delivery.
IN THE WAKE OF THE BEAGLE. Science in the Southern Oceans from the Age of Darwin.Edited By Iain McCalman and Nigel Erskine. Paperback, 250mm x 230mm, 192 pages, full colour and black and white illustrations and photos.
Strange as it may seem, the long wake of the tiny HMS Beagle stretches from the nineteenth century into the future of our globe. Charles Darwin spent only three months in Australia, but Australasia and the Pacific contributed to his evolutionary thinking in a variety of ways. One hundred and fifty years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, the internationally acclaimed authors of In the Wake of the Beagle provide new insights into the world of collecting, surveying and cross-cultural exchange in the antipodes in the age of Darwin. They explore the groundbreaking work of Darwin and his contemporaries Joseph Hooker, Thomas Huxley and Alfred Wallace, shed light on their interaction with the region's indigenous voyagers, and take a very modern look at the naturalists' influence on today's cutting-edge scientific research, at a time when global warming has raised the stakes to an unprecedented level.
NZ$71.50 + Delivery.
JACQUES COUSTEAU - THE SEA KING. By Brad Matsen. Paperback, 132mm x 203mm, 296 pages, black and white photos.
Jacques Cousteau opened up the undersea world as no one has done before or since. But not generally known is the fascinating and compelling individual behind the acclaimed television personality.
With the cooperation of many of Jacques Cousteau's collaborators, friends, and family, Brad Matsen gives us the first full picture of this remarkable life. Here is Cousteau working for the French resistance during World War II 9for which he received France's Croix de Guerre); developing and risking his life to test - the regulator that made scuba diving possible; running the world's largest scuba equipment manufacturing firm; becoming a legendary catalyst of the worldwide environmental movement' starring in The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and in hundreds of documentaries; and publishing more than fifty books. And here is the widowed Cousteau marrying his longtime mistress - forty years his junior and the mother of two of his children - kindling a bitter family feud that continues to this day.
Vividly conveying the people, the adventure, the science, and the lure of the sea that shaped Couteau's life, Matsen paints a luminous portrait of a man who profoundly changed the way we view, and treat, our planet.
NZ$36.00 + Delivery.
THE TELESCOPE - A SHORT HISTORY. By Richard Dunn. Hardback, 0.5kg, 147mm x 207mm, 192 pages, colour and monochrome illustrations. Published 2009.
The history of the telescope is far from short. Its invention in 1608 marked a turning point in progress: not just of science, but of astronomy and philosophy. In this lively narrative, Richard Dunn introduces us to the extraordinary characters and events that have shaped the four hundred years of the telescope's existence and the future of this iconic instrument.
Was NZ$37.00 + Delivery.
Now NZ$20.00 + Delivery.
ALWAYS THE SOUND OF THE SEA. The daily lives of New Zealand's Lighthouse Keepers
By Helen Beaglehole. Paperback with flaps, 216mm x 240mm, 264 pages, black & white photographs.
Lighthouses have a mystique, a romance and an almost biblical significance about them. Elegant structures located on remote and exposed sites where the land is challenged by the sea, they beam light into the darkness and transform uncertainty into knowledge and safety. They are the subject of legends and yarns, shanties and poems, written and oral history around the world.
New Zealand's lighthouses - their location, design, construction, operation and demanning - have been well documented in Helen Beaglehole's comprehensive history Lighting the Coast (2006). But the lives and work of the men and women behind the lights over the last 150 years deserves closer study. Why did they chosse the life? What did the job entail from day to day and year to year? How did it change over the decades? How did they feel about their work? What were their fears, frustrations and rewards?
In Always the Sound of the Sea Helen Beaglehole again challenges the myths and the romance as she looks for answers to these questions in the words of the keepers themselves. Drawing on a rich and intriguing mix of letters, diary extracts, official correspondence and interviews - from an 1872 diary to interviewswith the lastof the lighthouse keepers, she brings together first-hand acciounts of the life and work of these resourceful New Zealandres. Illustrated with family snapshots and other photographs, this book is both a sequel and a companion to her highly praised Lighting the Coast.
See also Guardians of the Light DVD for some great footage and the lighthouse keeper's and their family's own words.
NZ$41.00 + Delivery.
THE MAN WHO CHALLENGED AMERICA - THE LIFE AND OBSESSION OF SIR THOMAS LIPTON.
By Laurence Brady. Hardback, 163mm x 240mm, 240 pages, monochrome photos.
Glasgow-born Thomas Lipton was one of the world's first global entrepreneurs. His showmanship, business flair and customer-driven focus created a chain of grocery stores and an international tea business that made his fortune.
Outside the world of work, Lipton was obsessed with sailing, and though not a yachtsman himself, he mounted five challenges between 1899 and 1930 through the Roayl Ulster Yacht Club for the greatest prize in yachting - the America's Cup. This brought him extraordinary worldwide fame and affection, and his name became a byword for sportsmanship, diplomacy, competitiveness and perseverence. What's more, Lipton's astute association of business with a sport of international dimension established a trend that has become an accepted part of life today.
Until now, no biography of Sir Thomas Lipton has brought together these strands. The Man Who Challenged America is a lively, entertaining and hugely informative biography which reassesses and re-evaluates the life of this remarkable man whose challenges to win the America's Cup make one of the most moving and extraordinary stories in sporting history.
NZ$60.00 + Delivery.
LIGHTING THE COAST.By Helen Beaglehole. Hardback, 207mm x 276mm, 353 pages, monochrome photos.
To New Zealand, a small colony in the vastness of the South Pacific, shipping was a lifeline to the rest of the world - yet a lifeline too often placed in peril by the ferocity of the weather and a long, hazardous coastline.
Lighting the Coast is the first comprehensive history of New Zealand's system of 'well-placed and effective" lighthouses that were essential for 'the great maritime future' its government envisaged. This authoritative and highly readable book reveals the fascinating story of the siting, design, construction, operation and eventual demanning of those nineteenth- and early twentieth-century monuments of engineering. It reveals much of the lives of the lighthouse keepers - practical, independent men who took their families to live in remote parts of New Zealand - and raises critical questions about the future of the historic structures.
This handsome tribute to an enthralling aspect of New Zealand's history features more than 280 black-and-white and colour illustrations, including early photographs, painting, diagrams, maps and charts.
NZ$55.00 + Delivery.
THE PIRATE'S POCKETBOOK.By Stuart Robinson (Editor). Hardback, 130mm x 200mm, 192 pages, colour and black and white drawings.
What was it like to be a pirate in the Golden Age of piracy?
This pocket-book builds up an authentic picture of the lives and deaths of the most infamous pirates and privateers, as well as illuminating the brutal comradeship of pirate crew, and their devil-may-care attitude to their own mortality. The mythology of pirate ships, flags and rum punch, are all examined in special box-outs in order to get to the heart of the pirates’ world.
NZ$31.00 + Delivery.
SHIP'S CATS in War and Peace.By Val Lewis. Hardback, 160mm x 240mm, 20 pages, black and white photographs.
At heart, all domesticated cats are really ships’ cats. These are their stories, in war and peace, discovery and disaster, fact and fable, poetry and ballad.
NZ$61.50 + Delivery.
IN BLIGH'S HAND.By Jennifer Gall. Paperback, 1.15kg, 227mm x 256mm, 234 pages, colour & monochrome photographs and illustrations.
"just before sun rise the people mutinied seized me while asleep in my cabbin tied my hands behind my back"...
So begins Lieutenant William Bligh's account, written in a small notebook while on the 47-day voyage in the Bounty's launch from Tofua to Timor, following a dramatic mutiny on the ship led by Fletcher Christian, on 28 April 1789. The journey of the 19 men, crammed into a 23-foot boat, was fraught with danger: storms and high seas, indigenous people defending their land, near starvation, and tense and explosive relations between the sailors and their commander. All but one man survived to reach Timor - an incredible feat given the appalling conditions under which the men suffered.
This book brings the gripping tale to life. Through selected facsimile pages from Bligh's notebook and his list of mutineers, this book gives readers an insight into the character of Bligh, whose iron will and stubborn adherence to a relentless regime of rationing and navigational calculations kept the launch on course and saved the lives of his men.
NZ$45.00 + Delivery.
IT'S IN THE BLOOD.By John Lidgard. Paperback, 0.46kg, 148mm x 206mm, 302 pages, black & white photographs. Reprinted in 2012.
The title of this book,
JOhn's life has demonstrated a rare and complete array of yachting-related talents. Not only is he a sailor/navigator who has found success in a wide array of yacht-racing classes around the world, but he is a highly successful yacht designer and boatbuilder. Also, John has shown a dedication to bringing on new yachting talent. For all those reasons, he has earned himself a very special place in New Zealand yachting history.
John shares the stories of many triumphs, some disappointments, and even tragedy with his readers, who are given a remarkable insight into many famous races, and family cruising exploits that sometimes include the mosy unusual places.
This book will be especially treasured by the yahting fraternity and makes an important contribution to New Zealand's nautical history.
NZ$40.00 + Delivery.
THE COLIN WILD STORY.By Harold Kidd. Paperback, 0.17kg, 210mm x 297mm, 30 pages, black & white photographs. Published in 2012.
Colin Wild was in the top rank of New Zealand's pleasure craft designers and builders. Every one of the yachts and launches he built during the period from 1919 to 1955 was of the highest quality by any standards, local or international, within its design parameters. He was one of the few builders that Arch Logan would approve to build to his designs; the reasons for this will become apparent in this booklet.
NZ$20.00 + Delivery.
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