Shell A Class

[Tony Taylor]

Sailed on Aulica & Amastra as engineer cadet in the 80's. Amastra was a bit of a shock for me as I had been sold the dream of control rooms with ac by the recruiting bumpf but after a couple of days had a great. Ran aground in the Panama Canal, spilling half the cargo, went to Curacao for two weeks repairs which was just after two weeks of being on board. Then went across the Atlantic and caught the tail end of a hurricane.

I was on Aulica in 80, joined Singapore, where she had full cargo of Chinese Mogas but no customer, sailed to Jeddah for bunkers and orders, then Gib for orders, finally got orders at Ushant, discharge in Amsterdam into barges which took the cargo to Switzerland, was in Amsterdam 7 days, no run ashore as both boilers shut down one after the other, then sailed Curacao loaded for Colombia (Cartagena), Chile (Valparaiso), and paid off Peru (Callao). Bit of a workhouse.

[Phil Hughes]

I was on the brand new ASPRELLA in 1959 having flown from Southens Airport to Hamburg and then bussed to Kiel to join her for her maiden voyage. A lovely ship but a terrible feeder. First port of call was Amsterdam for fresh water to take to Gibraltar and the Mina-al-Ahmadi for first oil cargo and then Shell Haven in the Thames.
Phil Hughes.