by Bernard McCall

The Dutch coasting trades developed rapidly through the twentieth century following the introduction of motor coasters and a new generation of captain/ owners started to appear. This book covers mainly a twenty year period between 1950 and 1970.

There are detailed captions giving information about the ship, its history and location.

All the ships featured in this book were built in the Netherlands, although not all sailed under the Dutch flag.

Traditionally coasters had been owned by families with ships passing from one generation to the next along with the knowledge to operate and trade them successfully. The new generation were men who had left deep-sea trades and then bought a coaster or they were former crewmen who wanted to have their own vessel. The heyday of the Dutch coaster was the early 1960s when over 1000 were in service. as the 1960s progressed, competition increased in the coastal trades and the ships increased in size in order to carry more cargo.

As with all of Bernard McCall’s books the text is backed up with very high quality photographs.

This is another excellent book and I would very highly recommend it to any of our readers with an interest in coastal shipping.

Published by:

Hardback: 195mm x 241mm, 80 pp illustrated

Price: £17