SS Rotterdam (1908)

In the 1900s HAL increased the size of its largest transatlantic passenger liners. Between 1899 and 1902 it introduced three sister ships of about each, two of which were built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast. Then in 1906 Harland & Wolff completed , a new HAL flagship of almost . Nieuw Amsterdam was also HAL's first ship with quadruple expansion engines, and at she was about swifter than HAL's three liners. HAL then ordered an even larger ship from Harland & Wolff. Early in 1906 HAL had sold its previous Rotterdam to Det Forenede Dampskibsselskab, who renamed her C.F. Tietgen. HAL re-used the name Rotterdam for the new ship. ==Building==

HAL had ordered the new ship by July 1906. Harland & Wolff built her on slipway number 3 as yard number 390, where she was laid down on 6 November 1906. Her launch was planned for 22 February 1908. By 1pm that day about 5,000 guests of Harland & Wolff had gathered, and thousands more spectators lined the shores. But two other ships had not been moved out of the way, so the director of the shipyard had to cancel the launch for that day. The next day, a storm prevented the two ships from being moved out of the way, so the launch was cancelled again. A third attempt was cancelled because the grease used to lubricate the slipway had been pushed aside. Rotterdam was successfully launched on 3 March 1908. She was completed on 6 June that year, when she achieved on her sea trials. She then went to Southampton to be inspected in dry dock. ==Description==

Hull Rotterdams registered length was , her beam was and her depth was . Her tonnages were , and . The hull was divided into watertight compartments by 13 transverse bulkheads and one bulkhead along the centre line of the ship. The bottom of the hull was double. She had bilge keels. Propulsion Rotterdam had eight double-ended and two single-ended boilers, heated by a total of 54 corrugated furnaces. They supplied steam at 215 psi to twin quadruple expansion steam engines, each of which had a stroke and cylinders of , , and bore. The engines drove twin screws. The combined power of the twin engines was rated at 2,451 NHP or 15,000 ihp. although Rotterdam was a far bigger ship. Crew s bunkering Rotterdam at Hoboken, New Jersey Rotterdam had a crew of 472: 51 on deck, 119 in her engine room and stokehold, and 302 serving the passenger. The Purser had an Assistant Purser and five stewards. There were 126 waiters in first class, 55 in second class and 31 in third class. There were 44 cooks and 15 linen maids. ==Career==

HAL registered Rotterdam at her namesake of Rotterdam. Her code letters were PRMN. On 13 June 1908 Rotterdam left Rotterdam on her maiden voyage to Hoboken, New Jersey. She carried only 285 passengers: 75 first class, 82 second class and 128 third class. On 1 July she left Hoboken on her return voyage, carrying 288 passengers in first class, 356 in second class and 298 in third class. 1908 was not a good year for the US economy, and passenger numbers improved only slowly. However, by 1910 Rotterdam was carrying more than 1,000 migrants on each trip. By 1910 Rotterdam was equipped for submarine signalling, and the Marconi Company had equipped her for wireless telegraphy. By 1913 her wireless telegraph call sign was MHR, but by 1914 it had been changed to PEA. By 1914 Rotterdam had begun seasonal cruising. That February she left Hoboken with 842 first class passengers on a cruise to the Mediterranean via Madeira. She toured the Mediterranean, visiting Cádiz, Gibraltar, Algiers, Piraeus, Istanbul, Jaffa, Alexandria, Naples, Villefranche-sur-Mer, and Boulogne. First World War In August 1914 Rotterdam repatriated many US civilians who wanted to leave Germany or Switzerland. The Netherlands was one of the countries through which the Entente Powers' Blockade of Germany was evaded. Germany sought to import goods including copper, coffee, cotton, wool, livestock fodder, nitrate fertilisers, and up to a third of the total food supply for its population. In September 1914 Rotterdam left Hoboken carrying 1,500 tons of copper. She was arrested and brought to Plymouth on 22 September. However, the copper could not be unloaded from her holds as the Port of Southampton was closed. Instead, the UK government bought the copper, and the ship was released on 6 October. The copper was to be unloaded at Rotterdam and stored there for the UK government. On 12 October 1914 Rotterdam reached Rotterdam carrying 8,000 sacks of flour. On 16 October she left for Hoboken again, carrying almost 2,000 passengers. She then made another trip from Rotterdam to Hoboken, and two trips between Italy and Hoboken. The war sharply reduced the number of emigrants willing to cross the Atlantic. After most US citizens who wished to leave Europe had done so, there were too few passengers to make a profit. In 1915 Rotterdam ran a regular schedule between Rotterdam and Hoboken. Often fewer than 100 passengers embarked in Hoboken, but about 500 embarked in Rotterdam. Increased cargo trade kept HAL ships busy in the war. After an initial decline, exports from the Netherlands increased. Imports to the Netherlands increased so much that HAL chartered ships to carry the extra cargo. On 29 August 1915 a fire was discovered in her mailroom. Sulphur gas was pumped into the compartment in an attempt to extinguish the fire. On arrival in Rotterdam on 2 September it was found that the fire was still burning, so it was extinguished with water. The fire probably started in her cargo of cotton. Of the 201 sacks of mail stored above, seven were burnt, and the rest were badly damaged by water. In the first years of the war the Rotterdam also regularly transported gold to the Netherlands. On 11 May 1916 Rotterdam left Hoboken for Rotterdam. In England the UK authorities seized her mail. Also in England, she embarked survivors from the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd ship Palembang, which a mine planted by had sunk on 18 March. HAL then laid up Rotterdam. The official reason was that were she lost, she could not be replaced for many years because Dutch shipyards were not able to build a ship of the size of the Rotterdam. In July 1914 Harland & Wolff had launched a new Statendam for HAL, a ship even larger than Rotterdam, but in 1915 the UK government had requisitioned the uncompleted ship for conversion into a troopship. She was completed in 1917 as , and sunk by a U-boat in July 1918. Rotterdam remained safely laid up after Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917. Between the wars After the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Rotterdam was dry docked in Glasgow, as the Netherlands had no dry dock big enough for her. delegation aboard Rotterdam, 2 April 1921. From left to right: Ben-Zion Mossinson, Albert Einstein, Chaim Weizmann and Menachem Ussishkin. At the beginning of April 1921, a delegation of the World Zionist Organization sailed from Rotterdam to Hoboken aboard Rotterdam. They included Albert Einstein, Ben-Zion Mossinson, Menachem Ussishkin and Chaim Weizmann. Also in April 1921, Rotterdam became the first ship to use the new 46,000-ton dry dock at Wilton's Dok- en Werf Maatschappij in Schiedam. In the 1920s Rotterdam resumed winter cruises from Hoboken to the Mediterranean, including in 1923, February 1924, and February 1925. In 1929 she was refitted as a two-class ship, with berths for 517 first class and 1,130 tourist class passengers. Rotterdam was a coal-burner. At the beginning of September 1932, members of the Bond voor Minder Marine Personeel (BMMP) trade union working for most Dutch shipping lines struck for better wages. As Rotterdam left Boulogne on 4 September on a westbound crossing, her ships' stokers demanded that she terminate her voyage and return to Rotterdam. Her Master anchored her near the West Hinder lightvessel, where a detachment of 30 Dutch Marines boarded the ship from a pilot boat. The ship returned to Rotterdam, where 11 members of her crew were arrested for mutiny. On 7 September, NASM announced that it would not re-hire 400 BMMP members. Rotterdam and other NASM ships remained in Rotterdam as the strike continued. On 15 September some shipping lines reached an agreement with the BMMP, oncluding reinstatement of the 400 members that NASM had dismissed, but BMMP members at Rotterdam voted to reject it. However, the "contact commission" between the shipping companies and the BMMP established that an aggregate of the votes from the separate mass meetings at Amsterdam and Rotterdam produced a majority in favour of returning to work. NASM crews resumed service. left Rotterdam on 17 September, and all ships returned to normal their schedule. Late in 1933, Rotterdam was reconditioned, and an artificial beach was installed in one of her well decks. She started her cruising season on 18 November, leaving Hoboken with 450 passengers on a cruise to the West Indies. On 23 December she left Hoboken on a nine-day cruise to Nassau and Kingston. On 3 March 1934, she left Hoboken on a cruise to Central America. By 1930 Rotterdam was equipped with wireless direction finding. By 1934 the new four-letter call sign PHEG had replaced her code letters and three-letter call sign. Also by 1934, her hull had been repainted white. On 29 September 1935, Rotterdam was cruising off Jamaica at the time of the 1935 Cuba hurricane when she ran aground on Morant Cays. The Elders & Fyffes banana boat took off all of her 460 passengers and 70 of her crew, and landed them at Kingston. On 1 October, NASM's left Hoboken, without passengers. On 7 October she left Kingston carrying 350 of Rotterdams passengers and crew, and on 11 October she landed them at Hoboken. Rotterdam was refloated on 5 October. In January 1936 HAL reclassified Rotterdam, Volendam and as "cabin class" ships. Rotterdams one-way fares were reduced from $169.50 to $161.50 in the summer season, and from $161.50 to $153.50 in the off-season. HAL was the last major shipping line to adopt cabin class. In 1937 Rotterdam made a summer cruise to the North Cape and the Baltic. In Leningrad the Soviet authorities refused to let some passengers ashore from Rotterdam and three other ships. The reason why they chose certain passengers for exclusion was not clear. End of career from January 1940 showing Rotterdam being moved from Wilhelminakade to Waalhaven to be scrapped. Note the neutrality markings on the side of her hull On 21 November 1939 Rotterdam began her final transatlantic voyage from Rotterdam to New York. She got back to Rotterdam on 28 December. By then she had steamed the equivalent of 70 times the circumference of the earth. In January 1940 HAL sold Rotterdam to Frank Rijsdijk's Industriëele ondernemingen of Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht for scrap. On 5 January 1940 she was towed from the Wilhelminakade to Waalhaven, where her superstructure was demolished. HAL next used the name for the launched in 1958. She is now a combined hotel, museum ship and vocational education school. ==References==