Fleet List & History

by Ian Collard

Formed on Merseyside in 1913, Coast Lines grew from a small fleet of sixteen coastal ships operating in the Irish Sea to the world’s largest coastal fleet. at the time, over 4 million tons of shipping sailed from the Mersey on coastal voyages. at its height, the company included Powell, Bacon & Hough Lines, British Channel islands Shipping, Queenship Navigation, the Belfast Steamship Co., Burns & Laird Lines, the British & Irish Steam Packet, the North of Scotland, Orkney & Shetland Shipping Co., Tyne Tees Shipping and the Zillah Shipping Co. Pioneering the co-ordination of road transport with coastal shipping from the 1950s onwards, in 1971 Coast Lines was eventually taken over by P&o, by which time the fleet had declined from 110 passenger and cargo vessels in 1955 to only 25.

In this book, Ian Collard both examines the fascinating history of this famous Liverpool shipping company and provides a comprehensive fleet list with the full history of every ship that sailed for the company, backed up by photographs of many of the vessels described.

This is a well researched and detailed book about this important company and I would highly recommend it to our readers.

Published by:

Paperback: 170mm x 248mm, 128 pp illustrated

Price: £19.99