This story of the Fairport is interesting. The other four or five ships of this convoy had been fully loaded and on the day or two before sailing all the tanks arrived. They all had to be loaded on the Fairport which was the only ship with cargo space. From the readings I saw, the cargo was complete tanks, not just engines. The only dispute is how many tanks were actually on board-one source says 75, one less than 40 if they were only stored on deck. The convoy was headed to North Africa to replace British equipment lost in battle.