At 23.03 hours on 17 March 1942, U-83 fired a spread of three torpedoes at a steamer in convoy AT-34 about 45 miles north-east of Tobruk and missed. At 23.17 hours, one torpedo was fired that hit Crista (Master William Blackstone) on the starboard side abreast of the mainmast and set her on fire immediately. The explosion opened a hole 30 feet wide and destroyed the superstructure, but did not affect the engine room. The ten British and 25 Egyptian crew members, four naval gunners (the ship was armed with one 4in, two 20mm Breda and seven machine guns) and one naval signalman began to abandon ship on three rafts and two lifeboats, but the starboard boat was lost when it became water-logged upon launch. The third and fourth engineer, one gunner and the cook jumped overboard and tried to escape by swimming away, but were overcome by the burning oil on the water and only the gunner was later picked up by the other lifeboat, which had left the ship about 40 minutes after the hit. It was swamped during the launch and despite the water in the boat the 12 men in it evaded the burning oil, rescued the gunner that had previously jumped overboard and five others from a Carley float. They were picked up after about one hour by the South African M/S whaler HMSAS Boksburg, which afterwards rescued nine men from one raft and a few Egyptian crew members from another, but the third raft with four Egyptians was not found despite a search of the area. The whaler then rejoined convoy and later landed the survivors at Tobruk.

The abandoned Crista continued to burn and was the next day located by the British motor torpedo boat HMS MTB-266 which anchored her off Bardia in the Sollum Bay, where the fires were extinguished. Later she was taken in tow by HMS St. Monance (W 63) to Alexandria for repairs, escorted by the British armed trawler HMS Southern Isle and the British motor launches HMS ML-1005 and HMS ML-1069, arriving on 28 March. The ship was repaired and returned to service in August 1943.