S.S. Peleus

"Yis, I was in a typhoon once, in an empty ship, the Peleus it was. She was a proper old bastard, the Peleus, and no frige on her: an icebox, you know. And roll— by crimes we nearly rolled the sticks out of her going across the Western ..." (Ultramarine Pg. 174)

Lowry is most likely referring to a ship sailed by the Blue Funnel Line. Peleus (1) was built in 1901 by Workman, Clark & Co. Ltd. at Belfast with a tonnage of 7441grt, a length of 454ft 8in, a beam of 54ft 1in and a service speed of 10 knots. The first of a new class of four larger ships she started her career badly when she stuck on the ways when she was launched on 23rd February 1901 and it was week before she she completed her launch. On 21st September 1915 she collided with the Marchioness and the tug Flying Wizard near Greenock. After thirty years of service she was sold to Madrigal & Co. of Manila, renamed Perseus and two years later was broken up at Osaka in Japan.

It must be noted that there was another ship with same name - S.S. Peleus was a steam merchant ship built in 1928 by Gray and Company of West Hartlepool. Originally named Egglestone, she was acquired by the Nereus Steam Navigation company later that year and renamed after Pēleús (Greek: Πηλεύς), the mythical King of Aegina, and father of Achilles. She had an uneventful career in peacetime, and later during the Second World War: Then she worked under charter for the British government and operated in the South Atlantic, until her loss in March 1944. Read more on Wikipedia