As I recall, Matarani wouldn’t accept vessels at night, so the plan was to stop and drift until daylight, it seems anchoring was not possible, not sure why, but the Chief Engineer reckoned the sea was too deep – don’t know myself. Anyway as we tracked along up the coast there seems to have been an understimation of our actual distance from shore. The turn to seaward to drift was interrupted by a bump, which I took to be a collision with a fishing boat but which was in fact our first contact with the Peruvian mainland, the engine was still full ahead at this time, when we suddenly got standby followed immediately a double full astern ring followed, and then by a major bang and the engine stopped dead. I ran down the tunnel to see the tail shaft about three feet out of line with the last two bearing pedestals tipped over by about 30 degrees. I reported this to the second who considered the best thing to do was put the kettle on!
An extract from a first hand account. See Levernbank account on this site.
