There must have been many who did a stint on a Shell M boat. I was on the Mangelia (slow steaming) Summer 75 to Feb 76 completing my 6 months junior time. Five month of this I was with Senior RE/O Mike Ridehalgh. She had terrible radio room problems with the Crusader tx and not typical faults eg cracked iF Coil etc culminating tin the ledex switch wafer arcing through and a PA stage of a new tx having to be dropped by chopper. Cracked propeller it turned out when she entered drydock in feb 76 and that could have sheared off at any time apparently and have been a tow job.

The ship didn't go alongside once. Europort down round Cape to Muscat SBM mooring about 3 miles out. Over slow steaming to Curacao unloading to 3 smaller ships. No one got off. Back to Gulf and then back via Cape to Le Havre then Brest drydock. That took 6 1/2 months.

Chinese crew and good New Year.

When she went to new anchor they found the prop was badly cracked and could have sheared off. Apparently new one was sent to by coaster and the old one was supposed to go back to same place in UK. It was apparently put on deck of coaster upside down and then a strike started and the crane driver wouldn't turn in over. The coaster agreed to take it back as deck cargo as long as it was chocked. A storm blew up in the North sea that night and 45 tons of phospro bronze ended up on the sea bed.

I was told but haven't had it verified that she was the first supertanker to go through Suez after it had been widened. I was was told by the ch eng who i later sailed with at beg of Amoria trip that all the spares to fix the air conditioning were forthcoming then because the Supts were going to be onboard.

Sept 76 she was sold to the Greeks and the R/O on then got permission to take home the lovely Geisha doll presented by the building shipyard and dismantled cabinet. She now sits in his home in the South of England. (He sent me a photo recently of her). Think this doll was identical to some other on other M boats.

S.S. Mangelia I believe was the sister ship of the two that blew up Matra (2) and Marpessa during tank cleaning before I.G. systems were introduced. I kept being told about those two ships when I was on board.