Minerva Reef Fourteen Desperate Weeks with the Castaway Tongans. By Olaf Ruhen.SIGNED

Minerva Reef Fourteen Desperate Weeks with the Castaway Tongans. By Olaf Ruhen. 
SIGNED by AUTHOR plus the CAPTAIN Tevita Fifita and his wife, the ship's carpenter, and 2 passengers (one being Sipa Fine, the heavyweight boxing champion of Tonga)
Plus 4 photos of The Malolelei.

Publisher: Minerva Bookshop Limited, first edition, 1963. 

Very good hardback with jacket. Minor rubbing, fading and bumping to edges and corners, no owner inscriptions, binding firm, pages very good, minor marks. 
Jacket is rubbed with some marks, chipping, and 2 small repaired tears to edges, spine is faded. 

200 pages, illustrated. 

On the night of 7 July 1962 the twenty ton cutter Tuaikaepau, sailing from Tonga to Auckland, ran hard upon the outer edge of Minerva Reef, 380 miles south of Suva in Fiji. Heavy seas and the sharp teeth of the coral quickly broke the cutter to pieces, and her complement of seventeen Tongans found themselves without even a small boat on a reef that was totally submerged except during the few hours of low tide each day.

ALL PHOTOS ARE OF THE ACTUAL BOOK. 

All books are sent with free courier postage within New Zealand.