loss basis. Thynne had interests in three companies at this time: Organisations Ltd., R. L. Sandifer & Co. and Triumph Soap Co. Ltd. Kerr's aunt had assigned the coal business of A. G. Dawbarn to him under a deed of gift, but due to the industrial unrest and coal strikes of 1925 and 1926 it lost money and had to be closed. He still retained the yacht and a company called Household Coal (Southend) Ltd. Thynne and Kerr also purchased a funfair ride called Witching Waves. These businesses were combined under a holding company called Dawbarn Trust. Another director, Dr Alfred Ehrenreich, was appointed. He had started a business in America that caught and processed sharks to obtain commercial quantities of oils, chemicals, fertilizers, food and leather. He held patents on many of the processes and wanted to expand the operation to Europe and the southern hemisphere, using Kerr's yacht as a floating factory. To achieve this the three directors set up a company called Marine Products Limited, and funded it by the sale of shares to the public. The yacht was called Istar, a 300 ft luxury yacht, built in 1897 for New York property millionaire Robert Goelet, and originally named Nahma. After Goelet’s death the yacht stayed in family hands, but in WWI it was transferred to the US Navy. During the prohibition years in America it had been used as a rum-runner for Sir Brodrick C. D. A. Hartwell, who lost money on the venture. Kerr and Thynne sold their interest in the yacht to Marine Products in exchange for 250,000 ordinary shares. Ehrenreich sold his British and Colonial patent rights to the company using this same arrangement. The yacht's conversion to a factory ship included the installation of leather tanning drums, tanks, incinerators, oil extraction and drying plant for fins and meat; the main deck was reserved for handling the catch and for the ten motor boats used in catching the sharks. The Istar could process thirty tons of sharks per, day with sufficient storage for a hundred days work. Kerr was appointed the overseas director and went to New Zealand and Australia to negotiate for fishing rights, permits and local funding. He was later joined by Ehrenreich, but arrangements did not go as planned. The whole venture was based on Ehrenreich's theories about shark migration routes and size of the population. Some of the expert