This book deals with towage in the New Zealand ports. Due to the geographical location of New Zealand, the ports have to deal with very diverse nautical conditions. It shows how regional councils decide what the best solution is for their port towing service. This has resulted in an interesting variety of tailor-made tugboats. However, in recent years there has been a development towards the use of more standard type of tugboats. Furthermore, this book deals with the commercial companies that operate from these ports. These are companies in the field of marine construction, dredging, salvage and transport. The tugboats operated by those companies are also covered in this book. Peter J. Brom (1953) was born in Amsterdam. As a young man became fascinated by the many tugs in the Netherlands. Since then he has followed the towage industry and wrote about it, among other things in the monthly magazine Lekko.