One day in the late 1990s, Saint John harbour pilot Don Duffy was bringing a cargo vessel into the Port of Saint John.

As was customary, he asked the captain if he was familiar with the port.

The man, a Greek national, nodded and pointed to the Partridge Island breakwater.

He'd been in the port once before.

"My ship was over there," he said.

Duffy didn't need to be told the man was speaking of the Manes P, the cargo ship that wrecked against the breakwater almost 30 years earlier, a spectacular event for local residents, especially those on the west side of the city.

Later, when the Manes P's former crew member had safely berthed his latest ship at Pier 3, he invited Duffy to his cabin, where he told his story.

Retired Saint John Harbour Pilot, Don Duffy. Years after the wreck of the Manes P he had a long conversation with a man who was the ship's 3rd officer. (Connell Smith, CBC)

As a young man he'd been third officer aboard the stricken ship in those final panicked minutes before the crash on the 3rd of February, 1970.

Duffy can't recall the seaman's name but he'll never forget the conversation.

The Manes P had called on Saint John to pick up general cargo destined for South Africa. It was anchored off the port in heavy weather, with strong winds and big seas rolling up on Bayshore Beach.

In the early morning hours, imperceptible at first in the wild conditions, the ship began to move, its anchor dragging along the bottom.

"The 2nd officer was on watch and he didn't realize the ship was dragging," said Duffy. "And when he finally did, all attempts to remedy the situation, like dropping the second anchor and trying to get the engine going and everything, they just run out of time."

One can imagine the panic on board as the crew and captain were roused and attempts made to start the engine.

11 year old Al Babineau, left with friend Mike Beckwith. Word of the wreck ran through St Patrick's School (Eleanor Beckwith)

The crew was still aboard when the vessel inevitably crashed against the unyielding rock of the breakwater, its bow wedged into the sand at Bayshore Beach.

Throughout the next day, waves continued to pound over the breakwater, smashing the vessel time and again against the rocks.

Seawater poured into the bilge and cargo area. A photo taken that day by David Goss shows water being pumped out of the side.

A single long-shot attempt was made to save the vessel at high tide that day.

In a heavy swell, the tug Irving Beech backed in close and attached a heaving line to the ship's stern. But the Manes P's crew couldn't get approval from the insurance underwriters, who may have feared a worse marine disaster if things went wrong. With the tide falling, the line was detached and the cargo vessel's fate was sealed.

It then began a new life as something of a local landmark, and genuine sensation for people across southern New Brunswick.

Word of the wreck ran through nearby St. Patrick's School the following morning.

Eleven-year-old Al Babineau couldn't wait to get down to see it. When he did he was accompanied by his friend Mike Beckwith and Beckwith's mother, Eleanor.

Foster Hammond climbed a rope ladder to get on board the ship. Everything inside was being sold for cash. (Roger Cosman, CBC)

Eleanor Beckwith snapped a photograph of the two boys with the ship's hull looming overhead.

Bob Boudreau worked for the Canadian Coast Guard and in that capacity took numerous photographs of the vessel.

He said no attempt was made to keep people away during those first weeks. Members of the public could walk right up to the hull, and many did just that.

"There was always people looking at it, especially at low tide," Boudreau said. "You could almost walk up and touch the bottom, the very bottom of the ship."

Among his pictures is one of an elderly couple, elegantly dressed, arm in arm working their way through the muck to reach the hull.

"It was the first grounding of any vessel in the longest time," recalled Foster Hammond, who went down to see the ship with his cousin Peter Maybee. "We heard a ship had run in on the breakwater at Partridge Island.

"If you heard that, you went in to see it. Period."

When Foster Hammond heard a ship had run into the Partridge Island breakwater, he went down to see it and got inside. 1:53

In the earliest days after the grounding the Manes P was still being battered against the breakwater.

But the waves calmed and there was plenty of time over the next year or so for everyone to visit. The ship eventually settled into place, pointing straight toward the beach, its decks canted slightly in the direction of Sheldon Point.

It would eventually be written off by the insurers and cut up for scrap metal over several months.

For a time, members of the public, or at least those adventurous enough to use a rope ladder, were welcome to climb up to the tilted deck.

Once there, they found anything that wasn't welded down was up for sale.

Hammond made that climb, taking time onboard to look around and admire the ship's 1950s woodwork and brass fittings.

An elderly couple were among the thousands who were able to walk right up to the hull of the Manes P. (Bob Boudreau)

In the end, he paid $10 or $15 for a British Merchant Marine flag that had hung from the stern. He still regrets not finding the $50 required to buy the ship's entire collection of charts, which covered much of the world.

As shipwrecks go, the loss of the Manes P was far from a tragedy. No one died, and the only real loss was the career of its captain, an older man who — Duffy learned from the Greek seaman — was so devastated by the loss of his ship he never put to sea again.

The seaman also put to rest a persistent Saint John version of the story: that Manes P's crew members were working on the motor the night of the wreck and had partly disassembled it. As the tale goes, the crew frantically tried to put it back together while the ship, its anchor dragging, slid toward the rocks.

In fact, there was no tinkering with the motor. It simply takes a long time — often an hour — to prepare and start a marine engine.

The story offers a sobering lesson on the power of the sea. Duffy, a captain and master mariner himself, knows the nearly impossible situation faced by the crew that night.

"Once an anchor starts dragging on a ship in those conditions, generally it's hard to stop," he said.

"By the time they realized she was dragging [they] ran out of time. Like anything to do with a ship, it's not just one thing, it's a number of events that come together at the same time. And if you take any one thing out of the chain of events, of course, the accident wouldn't happen.

"Such as the weather, or the wind, or if the second officer would have been more alert, caught her sooner, or any of these things."

"The story of the Manes P? It ran out of time."