Remember her well as the Eagle. Sailed on her in her first season from Southampton to Lisbon. She was running 12 hours or more late due to constant machinery problems, got a hint of this when I noticed some cylinder heads on the quay as we were waiting for her to arrive.

She was built in a French yard and I found out later that there had been a lot trouble with the labour force because she was being built for a British Company. The machinery problems (MAN diesels if I remember correctly) were exasperated further by the being bored out to a larger size than another set being built for a sister ship the name which escapes me at present. This caused overheating in the main engines as the cooling system had not been amended to take this into account. This had been done to increase the ships speed from 18 knots to 20 knots.

We once had to stop one afternoon in the middle of the Bay of Biscay and there was some swell, and did she roll!! I got quite concerned when I realised that nothing was held down on the car decks and, to this day, it makes me shudder when I think of what could have happened, taking into consideration the accidents that occurred later with ships of this design.

The service in the passenger areas was for the most part great and the crew worked their socks off and must have been under some stress with all the complaints.

The one perhaps two things which compensated for the delay was that we entered the Tagus in the later afternoon with the sun in the right direction and, on our return, the sight of the Southampton Castle outbound for the Cape at full speed passing down our port side followed by the France following us up the Solent.

The cost was £304 for two cars and 5 people BTW.