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Blue Fin
Twelve-year-old Steve Pascoe is nicknamed 'Snook' by everyone in Port Lincoln. He's thin and long-faced, like the fish he's named after. At school he's no good at sport and, at home, his father scorns him. Snook joins his father and fellow crewmen on a tuna-fishing expedition, when disaster strikes. It is up to Snook to save himself and his father from a desperate situation.
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 6, 2012
I used to read this book to 10 and 11 yr olds when I was teaching. It was a long time ago so my memory is dim but I know it gripped them. Such a terrific adventure story with a young boy who finds himself battling for survival alone on the high seas when a commercial fishing trip goes wrong. Great the way it shows such growth in the character from the beginning of the story to the end. One of those rare stores that can really capture the interest of reluctant boy readers and begin to get them interested in books and reading.
July 3, 2022
Colin Thiele was a master at telling tales of how Australian boys grew up in the Australian environment. As seen in his stories such as ‘Sun on the Stubble’, ‘Storm Boy’ and ‘The Water Trolley’, ‘Blue Fin’ sees a young lad having to resolve the challenges of the outside world as well as those of his inner and family life. By facing and defeating the threats offered by the weather, the sea, and his own youth the protagonist, Snook, takes the first steps into his manhood, and being recognised accordingly by his peers and elders.
‘Blue Fin’ is a highly engaging novella that doesn’t just address the journey of a boy into becoming an adult. It’s also a highly evocative and at times sad story about the sea and those that work on it. Whilst it’s setting is the southern ocean off the coast of South Australia I would suspect that those that come from or know of fishermen and the life of sailors would find Thiele’s story most affecting. Hanging over the head of all in the story are the two threats of being lost at sea and, through a failure to secure enough of an income from their fishing, a failure on land. Even though this story is told from a boy’s perspective, it is one that is adult in terms of the reality that it documents. Whilst Snook is troubled by the relationship he has with his father, he is also aware of his father’s stresses. It doesn’t make their life together any easier, but at least Snook understands his dad. The potential tragedy is that for the most part Bill Pascoe doesn’t understand his son.
It must be said that this book is in some respects a creature of its setting, origins and age. ‘Blue Fin’ is a very masculine book. The female characters in the story are invariably seen as helping in the domestic lives of their families, figures of romantic desire, or worried and perhaps weeping over the fates of their beloved menfolk. This might be seen as a negative aspect of the book in today’s more politically correct environment. Hopefully one can still find a reason to celebrate books such as ‘Blue Fin’ without getting too distracted by gender politics.
There are other positive aspects of the book that Thiele deserves praise for. ‘Blue Fin’ is written with his customary sense of place, his innate knowledge of the small world he writes of. It isn’t hard for anyone who has either lived or spent some time in Port Lincoln to recognise the landscape, the seascape, the sea and the shoreline. As mentioned in my other reviews of Colin Thiele’s books he is the most South Australian of any author I’ve encountered.
Thiele’s prose is an admirable mix of plain speak, jargon and poetry. It’s obvious that the author knows what he’s talking about in this novel as one reads it, learning about the equipment and the ways and means of the tuna fishermen of Port Lincoln. There are times when Thiele writes with all the figurative flair of a poet, deploying metaphors, similes and other poetic tools to create just the right image or tone for his story.
So, who will enjoy ‘Blue Fin’? Perhaps nostalgic men and adventurous boys, those who both love and hate the sea, and (South) Australians with a connection with the places Thiele writes of. It should hopefully resonate for those wanting to engage with a worthy fictional study of the way boys and their fathers struggle in their relationships. Finally ‘Blue Fin’ is just a great yarn that is in the best Australian story telling tradition.
‘Blue Fin’ is a highly engaging novella that doesn’t just address the journey of a boy into becoming an adult. It’s also a highly evocative and at times sad story about the sea and those that work on it. Whilst it’s setting is the southern ocean off the coast of South Australia I would suspect that those that come from or know of fishermen and the life of sailors would find Thiele’s story most affecting. Hanging over the head of all in the story are the two threats of being lost at sea and, through a failure to secure enough of an income from their fishing, a failure on land. Even though this story is told from a boy’s perspective, it is one that is adult in terms of the reality that it documents. Whilst Snook is troubled by the relationship he has with his father, he is also aware of his father’s stresses. It doesn’t make their life together any easier, but at least Snook understands his dad. The potential tragedy is that for the most part Bill Pascoe doesn’t understand his son.
It must be said that this book is in some respects a creature of its setting, origins and age. ‘Blue Fin’ is a very masculine book. The female characters in the story are invariably seen as helping in the domestic lives of their families, figures of romantic desire, or worried and perhaps weeping over the fates of their beloved menfolk. This might be seen as a negative aspect of the book in today’s more politically correct environment. Hopefully one can still find a reason to celebrate books such as ‘Blue Fin’ without getting too distracted by gender politics.
There are other positive aspects of the book that Thiele deserves praise for. ‘Blue Fin’ is written with his customary sense of place, his innate knowledge of the small world he writes of. It isn’t hard for anyone who has either lived or spent some time in Port Lincoln to recognise the landscape, the seascape, the sea and the shoreline. As mentioned in my other reviews of Colin Thiele’s books he is the most South Australian of any author I’ve encountered.
Thiele’s prose is an admirable mix of plain speak, jargon and poetry. It’s obvious that the author knows what he’s talking about in this novel as one reads it, learning about the equipment and the ways and means of the tuna fishermen of Port Lincoln. There are times when Thiele writes with all the figurative flair of a poet, deploying metaphors, similes and other poetic tools to create just the right image or tone for his story.
So, who will enjoy ‘Blue Fin’? Perhaps nostalgic men and adventurous boys, those who both love and hate the sea, and (South) Australians with a connection with the places Thiele writes of. It should hopefully resonate for those wanting to engage with a worthy fictional study of the way boys and their fathers struggle in their relationships. Finally ‘Blue Fin’ is just a great yarn that is in the best Australian story telling tradition.
September 29, 2025
Colin Thiele: Blue Fin (1969)
Time: end of January – the last week of the school holidays when the tuna were really starting to run; 700 tons of tuna had been brought in to the Port Lincoln cannery during the past week, and the whole tuna fleet was out, dozens of boats nosing about on the Continental Shelf as eager as ferrets after rabbits. And because Snook had to go back to high school the following week his father had finally relented and told him he could come this time – but only under strict conditions
Venue: the sea off Port Lincoln, SA (the Continental Shelf/Great Australia Bight); 30 miles west sou’ west of Liguanea Island (about 10-hr sailing from Port Lincoln), passing Cabbage Patch on way home
Blue Fin: tuna clipper captained by Bill Pascoe (Mr. Pascoe); a solid, nuggety little vessel w/ a good pair of shoulders to her and a back bone as tough as a battleship’s, had plenty of space below for a big catch; could carry 40-45 tons of tuna (about A$160/ton) but her decks were small; a clean boat run by Bill Pascoe in a shipshape way; had always been a sound, well-built boat and the town’s retired fishing experts on the wharves and in the pubs spoke highly of her design; w/ luck she might stay afloat for weeks, unless bad weather swamped her
Bill Pascoe (Skip): a big man with long limbs; the skipper of the tuna clipper Blue Fin; Snook’s father; not a man for niceties; when home he sat at the head of the table munching furiously and giving orders; sometimes read a Fisheries Magazine from California or accidentally dunked The Port Lincoln Times in his soup, but most of the time he talked tuna;
Steven (Steve) Pascoe (Snook): a thin gangling fellow of 14 who looked like the fish he’d been named after; had the same straight tube-like body, the same long tapering nose, with closely set eyes and elongated jaw; the long eel-face; kids had been cruel to him about it; all through his primary school days they’d jeered at him over his nose and his nickname, and now it had followed him to high school. Mr. Smart, his class teacher in high school, was as ruthless as a barracuda; referring to Snook as “that poor fish” and suggesting that even if he was such a dolt in the classroom. perhaps with a shape like his he could make up for it at the swimming carnival. But Snook couldn’t swim very well either, and he was hopeless at football, so everybody wrote him off as a dead loss, his own father most of all; his father had no faith in him; has 2 sisters; Mr. Hom, the headmaster, was pleasant enough when he passed him in the yard with a kindly “Hullo Steven,” but even he spoilt things by adding “how’s the fishing?” And Mr. Smart, the class teacher, was as cruel as a knife. “Come on, Pascoe, you big Schnook,” he bawled relentlessly. “Use your brains for a change – if you’ll forgive the overstatement
2 sisters:
- Ruth Pascoe: aged 17; worked as a typist in the Government Produce Department, Snook’s best friend; understood his feelings and comforted him when mistreated by father; been going out with Sam Snell the link between them had become a strange two-way bond
- Wendy Pascoe: aged 11; a tomboy and a nuisance; spied on him, messed up his collection of shells, and told tales out of school
3 favorite school friends:
- Ockie Sandery (Ock): Tom Sandery’s son; short, stocky, fatfaced w/ exaggerated cheeks like a Walt Disney pig
- Bo Eglington: pert and freckled, so small barely looked half Snook’s height
- Snitch Hankel: age 15 (1-yr older than Snook), sharp-faced twinkly-eyed fellow w/ shrewd grin and slight stammer exacerbated when excited; dad Alf Hankel; brother Ron Hankel has a speedboat by which Snitch/Snook played water-skiing
Others
- Cynthia: a girl living next to Snook
- Pamela Wenzel: play the Lorelei (a siren)
Herbie Anderson: bright blue eyes; most experienced among all Blue Fin crewmen; been w/ the ship 4 yrs and seemed willing to stay for at least another 4 yrs; the lookout guy on the January tour perching on the crow’s nest scouting for tuna school; a great cook per: skipper, prepared breakfast & coffee during the day; on the April trip the bail-wait guy; small-faced, wiry, bright eyes; the watch-dog of the ship, “eyes like binoculars…must have them stuck on horns like a snail”; high-pitched voice like a seagull’s cry
Con Kanopolis: a Mediterranean immigrant with strong forearms solid fisherman; even more excitable than Herbit; been in Australia for 2 yrs most of which w/ Blue Fin, becoming old hand in tuna fishing
Alec Nelson: big brother of Andy Nelson (the SAFCOL radio operator) w/ queer carroty hair, soft hands b/c not having fished for months but wasn’t a new-chum; long scar down the side of neck where a flying squid had ploughed open the flesh showed he’d been a poler; had landed a 200-pounder tuna a yr or two ago near Greenly Island; argumentative and inclined to be noisy so some dislike sailing w/ him; had spent a week in Adelaide, once, doing an elementary course in meteorology so that he could help his brother Andy on VHSBA, and he thought he knew a bit about weather forecasting
Emil Eisenstein (Fritzie): his grandparents German immigrants, but most of the traces of his ancestry had disappeared; as Australian as a gumtree which he somewhat resembled; tremendously strong; stronger even than the other three polers standing beside him in the racks; could go on throwing tuna over his shoulder for hours on end as if he was shovelling chaff; later hurt his back
Sam Snell: a happy-go-lucky chap of about 18 w/ long legs; “Just call me Spyglass – cousin to Long John Silver”; not actually a Blue Fin crewman at all; normally sailed on Dog Star, a veteran old boat owned by an even older skipper, Bob Clutterbuck; Dog Star was on the slip for a week with a broken propeller shaft Sam had agreed to make one trip with Bill Pascoe; Snook had always hero-worshipped him at school; he could do and was good at everything (football, tennis, swimming, fishing, water-skiing, yachting, and even schoolwork); handsome too, with a bunch of blonde hair hanging over one temple in a way that made the girls swoon; he liked Snook or perhaps he pitied him; Sam usually had a kind word for Snook, or a cheery yell from the other side of the street; to Snook, Sam was like a kindly big brother; in love w/ Ruth Pascoe; Once or twice Sam came to Pascoe’s for tea because old Bob Clutterbuck was a more eccentric skipper than most of the others and was likely to keep Dog Star in port for an extra day while he argued in a bar or recovered from a headache; in the presence of Mr. Pascoe, Sam seemed almost as uncomfortable as Snook was so tended to go see Ruth Pascoe when Blue Fin was out at sea; it was Sam who jumped, without any hesitation, into the sea to save Snook when Snook fell overboard in a heated race between Blue Fin and Mollyhawk skippered by Bubbleguts Bellamy on their home stretch to first arrive back at the harbor in Port Lincoln
Stan Hodges: chummer working the bait tank/chumming tank; later ran a spike into heel and gone down with a septic foot;
Sid Hanna: pilot of the spotter plane that was searching the tuna grounds from the air; once was in good form with plenty of yarns and chatter, but whenever he did report a good-looking school (of tuna) it was always too far away for Blue Fin to have a hope of reaching it first, but NOT this time about 30 miles west sou’ west of Liguanea Island
Sergeant Spiers: work at the Police Station; organized mass search-and-rescue operations upon disappearance of Dog Star
Andy Nelson: red-haired radio operator of the SAFCOL radio station; a big man with pink-tinged hair the colour of a king schnapper; curled immensely long legs in a complicated way around the chair, leant forward towards the microphone, and began his steady, mechanical check; big red-headed (same as Andy) brother Alec Nelson gave Bill Pascoe a vague promise to join his tuna boatcrew given Fritzie’s (injured back) and Stan’s (infected foot) illness
Other skippers
Bob Clutterbuck (old Bob): wrinkled, hoary-headed, wayward, stubborn, happy-go-lucky all at once; the despair of his more efficient associates but indispensable all the same; a legend, talking-point, picturesque residue from old days; grizzled and independent like a slightly soiled seadog; skipper of Dog Star, nothing could quite disguise the ship’s antiquity though fitted w/ a diesel engine; called by Fritzie as “the Old Eternal”; Dog Star disappeared in the sea on a fishing trip at the beginning of April including 6 people: Old Bob/Sam Snell/Snitch Hankel/Ted Noble/Harvey Griffiths/Wayne Tregaskis
Boris Bellamy (Bubbleguts): skipper of Mollyhawk
Lennie Bellamy: Boris’s son; replaced Snitch’s place in the cannery as Snook’s helper lifting cooked fish onto the production line; a fat pudding faced blob of a boy w/ crab legs and broom-handled body who was even more obnoxious than his father Bubbleguts
Rudi Obst: skipper of Petrel
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Matthew Flinders: must have felt when he stood at this spot far back in 1802, mourning the loss of his eight sailors
Time: end of January – the last week of the school holidays when the tuna were really starting to run; 700 tons of tuna had been brought in to the Port Lincoln cannery during the past week, and the whole tuna fleet was out, dozens of boats nosing about on the Continental Shelf as eager as ferrets after rabbits. And because Snook had to go back to high school the following week his father had finally relented and told him he could come this time – but only under strict conditions
Venue: the sea off Port Lincoln, SA (the Continental Shelf/Great Australia Bight); 30 miles west sou’ west of Liguanea Island (about 10-hr sailing from Port Lincoln), passing Cabbage Patch on way home
Blue Fin: tuna clipper captained by Bill Pascoe (Mr. Pascoe); a solid, nuggety little vessel w/ a good pair of shoulders to her and a back bone as tough as a battleship’s, had plenty of space below for a big catch; could carry 40-45 tons of tuna (about A$160/ton) but her decks were small; a clean boat run by Bill Pascoe in a shipshape way; had always been a sound, well-built boat and the town’s retired fishing experts on the wharves and in the pubs spoke highly of her design; w/ luck she might stay afloat for weeks, unless bad weather swamped her
Bill Pascoe (Skip): a big man with long limbs; the skipper of the tuna clipper Blue Fin; Snook’s father; not a man for niceties; when home he sat at the head of the table munching furiously and giving orders; sometimes read a Fisheries Magazine from California or accidentally dunked The Port Lincoln Times in his soup, but most of the time he talked tuna;
Steven (Steve) Pascoe (Snook): a thin gangling fellow of 14 who looked like the fish he’d been named after; had the same straight tube-like body, the same long tapering nose, with closely set eyes and elongated jaw; the long eel-face; kids had been cruel to him about it; all through his primary school days they’d jeered at him over his nose and his nickname, and now it had followed him to high school. Mr. Smart, his class teacher in high school, was as ruthless as a barracuda; referring to Snook as “that poor fish” and suggesting that even if he was such a dolt in the classroom. perhaps with a shape like his he could make up for it at the swimming carnival. But Snook couldn’t swim very well either, and he was hopeless at football, so everybody wrote him off as a dead loss, his own father most of all; his father had no faith in him; has 2 sisters; Mr. Hom, the headmaster, was pleasant enough when he passed him in the yard with a kindly “Hullo Steven,” but even he spoilt things by adding “how’s the fishing?” And Mr. Smart, the class teacher, was as cruel as a knife. “Come on, Pascoe, you big Schnook,” he bawled relentlessly. “Use your brains for a change – if you’ll forgive the overstatement
2 sisters:
- Ruth Pascoe: aged 17; worked as a typist in the Government Produce Department, Snook’s best friend; understood his feelings and comforted him when mistreated by father; been going out with Sam Snell the link between them had become a strange two-way bond
- Wendy Pascoe: aged 11; a tomboy and a nuisance; spied on him, messed up his collection of shells, and told tales out of school
3 favorite school friends:
- Ockie Sandery (Ock): Tom Sandery’s son; short, stocky, fatfaced w/ exaggerated cheeks like a Walt Disney pig
- Bo Eglington: pert and freckled, so small barely looked half Snook’s height
- Snitch Hankel: age 15 (1-yr older than Snook), sharp-faced twinkly-eyed fellow w/ shrewd grin and slight stammer exacerbated when excited; dad Alf Hankel; brother Ron Hankel has a speedboat by which Snitch/Snook played water-skiing
Others
- Cynthia: a girl living next to Snook
- Pamela Wenzel: play the Lorelei (a siren)
Herbie Anderson: bright blue eyes; most experienced among all Blue Fin crewmen; been w/ the ship 4 yrs and seemed willing to stay for at least another 4 yrs; the lookout guy on the January tour perching on the crow’s nest scouting for tuna school; a great cook per: skipper, prepared breakfast & coffee during the day; on the April trip the bail-wait guy; small-faced, wiry, bright eyes; the watch-dog of the ship, “eyes like binoculars…must have them stuck on horns like a snail”; high-pitched voice like a seagull’s cry
Con Kanopolis: a Mediterranean immigrant with strong forearms solid fisherman; even more excitable than Herbit; been in Australia for 2 yrs most of which w/ Blue Fin, becoming old hand in tuna fishing
Alec Nelson: big brother of Andy Nelson (the SAFCOL radio operator) w/ queer carroty hair, soft hands b/c not having fished for months but wasn’t a new-chum; long scar down the side of neck where a flying squid had ploughed open the flesh showed he’d been a poler; had landed a 200-pounder tuna a yr or two ago near Greenly Island; argumentative and inclined to be noisy so some dislike sailing w/ him; had spent a week in Adelaide, once, doing an elementary course in meteorology so that he could help his brother Andy on VHSBA, and he thought he knew a bit about weather forecasting
Emil Eisenstein (Fritzie): his grandparents German immigrants, but most of the traces of his ancestry had disappeared; as Australian as a gumtree which he somewhat resembled; tremendously strong; stronger even than the other three polers standing beside him in the racks; could go on throwing tuna over his shoulder for hours on end as if he was shovelling chaff; later hurt his back
Sam Snell: a happy-go-lucky chap of about 18 w/ long legs; “Just call me Spyglass – cousin to Long John Silver”; not actually a Blue Fin crewman at all; normally sailed on Dog Star, a veteran old boat owned by an even older skipper, Bob Clutterbuck; Dog Star was on the slip for a week with a broken propeller shaft Sam had agreed to make one trip with Bill Pascoe; Snook had always hero-worshipped him at school; he could do and was good at everything (football, tennis, swimming, fishing, water-skiing, yachting, and even schoolwork); handsome too, with a bunch of blonde hair hanging over one temple in a way that made the girls swoon; he liked Snook or perhaps he pitied him; Sam usually had a kind word for Snook, or a cheery yell from the other side of the street; to Snook, Sam was like a kindly big brother; in love w/ Ruth Pascoe; Once or twice Sam came to Pascoe’s for tea because old Bob Clutterbuck was a more eccentric skipper than most of the others and was likely to keep Dog Star in port for an extra day while he argued in a bar or recovered from a headache; in the presence of Mr. Pascoe, Sam seemed almost as uncomfortable as Snook was so tended to go see Ruth Pascoe when Blue Fin was out at sea; it was Sam who jumped, without any hesitation, into the sea to save Snook when Snook fell overboard in a heated race between Blue Fin and Mollyhawk skippered by Bubbleguts Bellamy on their home stretch to first arrive back at the harbor in Port Lincoln
Stan Hodges: chummer working the bait tank/chumming tank; later ran a spike into heel and gone down with a septic foot;
Sid Hanna: pilot of the spotter plane that was searching the tuna grounds from the air; once was in good form with plenty of yarns and chatter, but whenever he did report a good-looking school (of tuna) it was always too far away for Blue Fin to have a hope of reaching it first, but NOT this time about 30 miles west sou’ west of Liguanea Island
Sergeant Spiers: work at the Police Station; organized mass search-and-rescue operations upon disappearance of Dog Star
Andy Nelson: red-haired radio operator of the SAFCOL radio station; a big man with pink-tinged hair the colour of a king schnapper; curled immensely long legs in a complicated way around the chair, leant forward towards the microphone, and began his steady, mechanical check; big red-headed (same as Andy) brother Alec Nelson gave Bill Pascoe a vague promise to join his tuna boatcrew given Fritzie’s (injured back) and Stan’s (infected foot) illness
Other skippers
Bob Clutterbuck (old Bob): wrinkled, hoary-headed, wayward, stubborn, happy-go-lucky all at once; the despair of his more efficient associates but indispensable all the same; a legend, talking-point, picturesque residue from old days; grizzled and independent like a slightly soiled seadog; skipper of Dog Star, nothing could quite disguise the ship’s antiquity though fitted w/ a diesel engine; called by Fritzie as “the Old Eternal”; Dog Star disappeared in the sea on a fishing trip at the beginning of April including 6 people: Old Bob/Sam Snell/Snitch Hankel/Ted Noble/Harvey Griffiths/Wayne Tregaskis
Boris Bellamy (Bubbleguts): skipper of Mollyhawk
Lennie Bellamy: Boris’s son; replaced Snitch’s place in the cannery as Snook’s helper lifting cooked fish onto the production line; a fat pudding faced blob of a boy w/ crab legs and broom-handled body who was even more obnoxious than his father Bubbleguts
Rudi Obst: skipper of Petrel
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Matthew Flinders: must have felt when he stood at this spot far back in 1802, mourning the loss of his eight sailors
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2018
Slow going at first but a ripper ending. Reading it to my 10 yo now.
July 28, 2018
Brilliant writing, timeless topic - must read for pre-teens.
May 30, 2020
I don’t know why it took me 40 years to read this book but I’m sure glad I did.
I was sick the day that my Year 4 class went to the picture theatre to see the film in 1979. I wonder if I will ever see it.
I was sick the day that my Year 4 class went to the picture theatre to see the film in 1979. I wonder if I will ever see it.
June 2, 2010
Read this in primary school which was required reading in Port Lincoln, before the movie came out. Better than the movie ... probably because the te movie location was not Port Lincoln, but Streaky Bay. However, great book.
Read
May 5, 2009isbn,original
October 21, 2010
Great book.
December 16, 2012
biggest bore in the world. gosh we had to read a lot of boring Australian books in Year 8.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews