Books by Ian Collard

A lavishly illustrated look at this much-missed company. Ian Collard tells the fascinating story of this unique shipping company.

Ian Collard looks at the cruise ships of the iconic Cunard line.

The main role of the tug is to assist vessels in the river or within the dock system by moving them by pushing or towing. They are also used to tow barges or platforms which have no engines or methods of propulsion. Tugs are designed to be highly manoeuvrable and powerful as they normally work with large vessels in restricted spaces. The main towing companies operating on the Mersey in the twentieth century were J. & J. H. Rea Limited, Liverpool Screw Towing Company and the Alexandra Towing Company Limited. Mersey tugs were employed to work with passenger liners, cargo vessels, oil tankers and other vessels working on the river. The modern tug is equipped with azimuthing thrusters or Voith Schneider Vertical propellers which enable them to generate the thrust required for towing the larger vessels which are now being built. In this book, Ian Collard charts the development of the Mersey tug from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

Founded in 1838 in Liverpool, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was the first to operate steamships in the Pacific and primarily traded from the UK to the Pacific coasts of South America. Its most famous ships included the Reina del Pacifico and the Reina del Mar. With a line of notable firsts to its name, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company name had disappeared by 1984, part of the rationalization of Furness Withy Group. In 1990, Furness Withy itself was sold to Hamburg Sud, another line which had operated on the South Atlantic and Pacific routes. Many in Liverpool and in South and Central America, from Panama to Tierra del Fuego have fond memories of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and this history and fleet list will bring back memories of those vessels of the line, both deep sea and coastal, which once operated on the South American run.

Over the course of 100 years, the Isle of Man developed from a collection of fishing villages into one of the main holiday destinations for people working in the Lancashire mills and coal mines.

ELLERMAN LINES was formed by John Reeves Ellerman at the end of the nineteenth century.

Mersey ports