Career
NASM registered Rotterdam at Rotterdam. Her code letters were WLJR. On 18 August 1897 she left Rotterdam on her maiden voyage, which was to New York via Boulogne. Her final voyage in this route began from Rotterdam on 17 February 1906.[3]
On 5 April 1906 Scandinavian America Line bought Rotterdam and renamed her C. F. Tietgen,[2] after the Danish industrialist Carl Frederik Tietgen. She was registered in Copenhagen, and her code letters were NPRK. On 29 April she began her first voyage from Copenhagen to NewYork via Christiania and Kristiansand.[3]
On 28 June 1906 C. F. Tietgen collided with the 70 ft, US schooner E. C. Hay in the North River off the Desbrosses Street Ferry terminal in New York City. E. C. Hay sank, but all four people aboard her survived.
By 1910 C. F. Tietgen was equipped for wireless telegraphy. On 7 July 1910 she left Copenhagen on a cruise to the North Cape, calling at Bergen and Trondheim.[4] By 1913 her call sign was DCF. On 29 July 1913, Nordisk Film chartered her to appear in the film Atlantis.[4] On 6 November 1913 she began her final voyage from Copenhagen to New York.[3] She completed 110 transatlantic crossings for Scandinavian America Line.[4]
On 24 December 1913 Russian American Line bought C. F. Tietgen and renamed her Dwinsk (Двинск), which is a Russian name for the city of Daugavpils in what was then the Vitebsk Governorate of the Russian Empire. She was registered in Libau (now Liepāja in Latvia), her code letters were IWAR, and her wireless telegraph call sign was RDK.
On 10 February 1914, Dwinsk began her first voyage from Libau to New York. Her final voyage on this route began on 28 July 1914, the day the First World War began. On 20 September 1914 she began her first voyage from Archangel to New York via Hammerfest.[3]
After the October Revolution in the Russian Empire, the United Kingdom government seized Dwinsk. The Shipping Controller appointed Cunard Line to manage her. Her UK official number was 142312 and her code letters were JSKH. She was defensively armed with one or more naval guns. On at least one voyage she carried troops from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Great Britain.[5]
