SS Volendam was a Dutch-owned transatlantic liner, launched in Scotland in 1922 and scrapped in the Netherlands in 1952. She was part of the first generation of turbine-powered steamships in the Holland America Line (Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij, or NASM) fleet. Volendam and her sister ship were NASM's largest turbine steamships until the flagship was completed in 1929.
In the 1920s and 30s, Volendam spent most of her career on scheduled services between Rotterdam and Hoboken, New Jersey. She also operated seasonal cruises: mostly to the Caribbean, but occasionally to the Mediterranean, and to Norway. In the Second World War, she evacuated refugees from Europe, including children from Britain, until in 1940 she was damaged by two torpedoes.
In 1941 she returned to service as a troop ship. In 1947, she became an emigrant ship, at first carrying mostly Dutch emigrants. In 1948 she returned to transatlantic service, offering budget travel, which attracted US and Canadian students making their summer vacation in Europe. She was scrapped in 1952.
This was the first NASM ship to be named after the town of Volendam in North Holland. NASM next used the name in 1972, when it bought and renamed the turbine steamship .
Building In 1922, Harland & Wolff launched two liners at its shipyard in Govan, Glasgow, for NASM. Volendam was built as yard number 649 on slipway number 6, launched on 6 July 1922, and completed on 12 October that year. Her sister Veendam was launched on 18 November 1922 and completed on 29 March 1923.
Volendams lengths were overall and registered. Her beam was and her depth was . Her tonnages were , and . As built, she had berths for 899 passengers: 263 in first class, 436 in second class, and 200 in third class. Her holds had capacity for of grain, or of baled cargo.
Her public rooms included a First Class smoking room decorated in early Tudor style, with a fireplace, and oak-panelled walls and ceiling. Passengers had control of the heating and ventilation of their individual cabins, which in 1922 was an innovation.
The ship had two screws and four turbines: two high-pressure and two low-pressure. Each screw was driven by one high-pressure and one low-pressure turbine via single-reduction gearing. Her nine water-tube boilers were oil-fuelled, and supplied steam to her high-pressure turbines at 215 psi. The combined power of her four turbines was rated at 1,913 NHP or 8,000 bhp, and gave her a speed of .
NASM registered Volendam at Rotterdam. Her code letters were PWQC.
Early years Volendam began her maiden voyage from Rotterdam on 4 November, called at Boulogne and Plymouth, and arrived in Hoboken with 750 passengers on 15 November. On 18 November she hosted a luncheon for 300 guests, addressed by speakers including the Chargé d'affaires form the Embassy of the Netherlands, Washington, D.C.
On an eastbound voyage on 3 March 1926, Volendam rescued the captain and five crew members of a schooner that had been adrift for 77 days, without sails, and sinking. On another eastbound voyage in April 1926, a passenger was lost overboard.
On 29 January 1927, Volendam left Hoboken on her first cruise. It was to the Caribbean, which became her most frequent destination for winter cruises. In 1928 her passenger accommodation was revised to 263 first class, 428 second class, and 484 tourist class. In 1929 she made three Caribbean cruises, leaving Hoboken on 26 January, 16 February and 9 March. Ports of call included Port-au-Prince, Venezuela, and the Panama Canal. Haiti was then a novelty as a cruise destination, and NASM was the only company to include it in its cruises that year.
By 1930, Volendams navigation equipment included wireless direction finding. Coincidentally, on a westbound crossing in June 1930, the wireless telegraphist of Charles Kingsford Smith's Fokker F.VII aircraft Southern Cross, on a 12-hour transatlantic flight to Newfoundland, contacted Volendam with a request for bearings. Volendam replied that she was at about , and that Southern Cross was about north of her.
The Great Depression that began in 1929 brought a global slump in commercial shipping. On 24 December 1930, NASM revised its fares for 1931. Fares were seasonal, and had been divided into summer, winter, and intermediate. NASM abolished the intermediate seasons, simplified the fares to summer and winter only, and announced significant reductions. On Volendam and Veendam, the minimum first class fare would be US$122.50 for summer and $165 for winter. The summer fare for a two-berth cabin with a window and ensuite bathroom was reduced from $345 to $222.50. A two-berth cabin on "A" deck with an outside window would be reduced from $275 or $285 to $212.50.
On 3 October 1931, Volendam left Hoboken carrying $10 million in gold for banks in Amsterdam.
More cruises and longer cruises On 18 March 1933, Volendam was due to leave Hoboken on a 12-day Caribbean cruise. A month before she was due to sail, NASM shortened the cruise to nine days, omitting a call at Kingston, Jamaica, and reduced the fares accordingly. On 4 July 1933, Volendam left Hoboken on a cruise to the Mediterranean. The voyage had been planned to take 54 days, cover , and visit 12 countries, including Norway to see some of its fjords. She returned via Rotterdam, and reached Hoboken on 28 August.
On 19 May 1934, the author Thomas Mann and his wife Katia embarked on Volendam at Boulogne. Germany had exiled Mann, and he had obtained a visa to move to the USA. They landed at Hoboken on 29 May. During the voyage, Mann planned his book Meerfahrt mit Don Quijote ("Sea Voyage with Don Quixote"), which refers to life aboard Volendam.
By 1934, the wireless telegraph call sign PIHP had replaced Volendams code letters. The ship was scheduled to make a seven-day cruise from Rotterdam to Norway and Denmark in June 1934.
A month later, National Tours rescheduled the long cruise to leave Hoboken on 23 February. The Pacific coast of South America was still on the itinerary, but no Pacific islands were mentioned. Instead, her ports of call were to include Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Fort-de-France, Bridgetown, Port of Spain, La Guaira, Willemstad and San Juan.
A company called National Tours chartered Volendam for a series of cruises in February and March 1935. One left Hoboken on 12 February, called at Nassau and Havana, and was for nine days. The next left Hoboken on 23 February, and included Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Martinique, Barbados, Trinidad, Caripito, Ciudad Bolívar, and Curaçao. On 12 March the ship was due to cruise to Havana and Nassau with 250 passengers, but National Tours cancelled it due to unrest in Cuba. Passengers were offered berths on , which was due to leave Hoboken on 16 March on a cruise to St Thomas, Port-au-Prince, Curaçao and La Guaira. On 27 March, Volendam called at St. George's, Bermuda as part of a cruise with 325 passengers. She was the first ship to use a new channel, deep and wide, that had been dredged into St George's harbour.
On 2 July 1935, Volendam left Hoboken to repeat the cruise to the Mediterranean and Norway that she had made in 1933. The cruise was fully-booked with 450 passengers, and was scheduled to take 54 days. The cruise was to include a voyage up Nærøyfjord to Gudvangen in western Norway.
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 Ariguani took off all of her 460 passengers and 70 of her crew, and landed them at Kingston. On 1 October Volendam 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.
Cabin class In January 1936, HAL reclassified Rotterdam, Volendam and Veendam as "cabin class" ships. Volendam and Veendams one-way fares were reduced from $149.50 to $141.50 in the summer season, and from $142.50 to $134 in the off-season. HAL was the last major shipping line to adopt cabin class. The Society of Beaux-Arts chartered Volendam for a charity fund-raising cruise to Nassau for the Architects Emergency Relief Fund. Volendam was to leave Hoboken on 11 March, and the passenger list was limited to 250.
Volendam did not always work continuous seasons of either transatlantic services or cruises. She sometimes alternated between different duties in the same season. For example, in 1937, in the middle of the winter cruise season, she left Rotterdam on 13 February, reached Hoboken on 24 February, left Hoboken on 27 February, and arrived in Bermuda on 1 March.
In 1937, the passenger accommodation on both Volendam and Veendam was extensively refurnished. In third class, upper berths were removed, new wardrobes and other furniture were installed, and "noiseless" fans were installed in cabins. Public areas were recarpeted, and the dining saloons were refurnished with new chairs and smaller tables. First class and tourist class cabins were also refurnished, and cocktail bars were installed near the dining saloons.
On 7 February 1939, Volendam arrived at Hoboken carrying gold worth US$18 million from Europe. $9,354,000 was from the United Kingdom and $7,347,000 was from the Netherlands. The shipment was the first part of a total of $66 million being moved from Europe to the USA.
On 5 May 1939, Volendam left Hoboken with 371 passengers on a 13-day cruise to Bermuda, Nassau and Havana. She called at Nassau, and was en route to Bermuda, when on 9 May she struck a submerged object, which damaged one of her propellers and forced her to reduce speed. Her Master cancelled her call at Bermuda, and she returned directly to Hoboken for repairs. Passengers were offered the options of either a 50 per cent refund, or an eight-day cruise aboard Rotterdam, which would leave Hoboken on 3 June.
In May 1939, NASM bought Red Star Line, which the German government had forced Arnold Bernstein to sell. On 11 June, NASM announced that it would double the frequency of the former Red Star service between Antwerp and Hoboken by transferring Volendam and Veendam to the route to work alongside the Red Star liners and . All four ships on the route would call at Boulogne and Southampton in both directions. Volendam was to make her first sailing from Antwerp on 29 July.
Crisis in Europe On 1 September 1939 the Second World War began. NASM had Volendams hull painted with neutrality markings: "VOLENDAM – HOLLAND" painted amidships in large white capital letters, and a large Dutch flag painted either side of her bow. Volendam left Antwerp as scheduled on 9 September. After calling at Boulogne and Southampton she was carrying 845 passengers, including 600 US citizens.
The passengers included Sherwood Eddy and the Italian Consul-General to Santo Domingo, Amadeo Barletta Barletta. Eddy gave a 90-minute impromptu lecture about the war to about 150 passengers in the ship's library. He told his audience that he proposed to give a second lecture the next evening. Barletta objected that Eddy's lecture was both "pro-British" and "pro-Bolshevik", and complained to Volendams Master, Jan Wepster. Captain Wepster responded with a notice to all passengers.
"This ship is Holland territory. Holland is neutral in the present war. It is strictly forbidden by our government to make propaganda or have meetings for or against any country with which our country maintains friendly relations. Therefore I cannot allow any lectures or meetings to be held for propaganda for or against any government. And please do not forget that we have twenty-two different nationalities on board.