Transatlantic service and winter cruises
On 11 April 1929 Statendam left Rotterdam on her maiden voyage to New York.[8] She arrived in New York on 19 April to a traditional welcome of fireboats making a display with jets of water.[9] She docked at Fifth Street dock in Hoboken.[10] On 22 April, a team of NYPD police motorcycles escorted Statendam's officers, and NASM personnel including the Rypperda Wierdsma, to New York City Hall to be received by Mayor Jimmy Walker.[11] That evening the ship hosted a gala reception for 500 guests. The politician William C. Redfield as toastmaster. Speakers included the Dutch Ambassador JH van Royen, aircraft maker Anthony Fokker, New York police chief Grover Whalen, and retired justice George Landon Ingraham.[10]
Transatlantic passenger traffic was seasonal, and was less in winter, so in most winters, Statendam cruised from New York to the Caribbean.[8] She began her first Caribbean cruise from New York on 21 December 1929.[12] On 1 January 1930, while being warped at Havana, she struck the Cunard Liner RMS Franconia (1922), crushing the port end of the latter's flying bridge, and breaking off several feet of her rail. Statendam suffered several broken windows in her superstructure. Statendam completed her 16-day cruise, and returned to New York on 7 January.[13]
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 until 1930 the company had divided them into summer, winter, and intermediate. For 1931, NASM abolished the intermediate seasons, simplified the fares to summer and winter only, and announced significant reductions. On Statendam, the minimum first class fare eastbound would be US$222.50 from August to April, and westbound would be $200 from November to July. The minimum first class fare would be $122.50 for summer and $165 for winter. Most minimum second class cabin rates were unchanged, except for winter round-trip tickets. These were reduced to $255 between Hoboken and Plymouth or Southampton, and to $264 between Hoboken and Boulogne or Rotterdam.[14]
On 1 January 1931, Statendam again collided with a liner in Havana harbour. A heavy sea pushed her against the starboard side of the Italian liner SS Conte Grande, damaging several plates of the latter's hull.[15] Statendam completed at least three Caribbean cruises that winter. The third started from New York on 29 January, and was scheduled to take 25 days. Destinations included the Virgin Islands, Martinique, Barbados and Trinidad, a steamboat excursion up the Orinoco to Ciudad Bolívar,[16] and a visit to Nassau, Bahamas.[17] That winter she ran cruises for a total of four months.[18]
By 1931, Statendam was equipped with submarine signalling and wireless direction finding. On 12 April that year she ran aground on a mudbank at the entrance of Southampton Water.[18] She was refloated after 47 hours, with the aid of six tugs.[19] NASM reclassified her second class accommodation as "tourist class" from 10 October.[20] At Hoboken on 6 November was towed away from the Fifth Street terminal and out into the middle of the Hudson River, as fire destroyed a nearby trainshed and 25 freight cars of the Hoboken Manufacturers' Railroad. Flames rose 50 ft high at times. Before Statendam was towed clear, her crew fought to extinguish embers that fell on her foremast and rigging.[21]
In the winter of 1931–32, Statendam made four Caribbean cruises.[22] The first was for 16 days, left New York on 19 December, and included calls at Nassau, Port-au-Prince, Colón, Panama, Kingston, Jamaica and Havana.[23] It was followed by one cruise of 17 days and two of 26 days.[22] For the first cruise, Statendam took with her a company of eight actors to perform six plays to her 300 passengers. A temporary stage had been erected to turn her veranda café into a theatre.[23]
On 23 April 1932 Statendam left Hoboken on a transatlantic crossing to Rotterdam. Her passengers included the geophysicist Dr Vening Meinesz, who had recently completed the "Navy-Princeton gravity expedition to the West Indies" in the submarine USS S-48. A cabin aboard Statendam was fitted out with a gravimeter, for Dr Meinesz to take gravity measurements during his voyage to Rotterdam.[24]
On 19 May 1932 the tennis star Helen Wills Moody left Hoboken on Statendam on her way to play in the 1932 Wimbledon Championships.[25] On 12 August, a Czechoslovak ballet company led by the Russian-born Yelizaveta Nikolská, accompanied by Statendam's orchestra, danced on the sun deck as the ship entered New York harbor.[26]
Statendam's passenger accommodation and public rooms were elegant but dated,[27] so in 1933 she was refitted. This reduced her tonnages to and. By 1934 the ship's navigation equipment included a gyrocompass, and the call sign PHSN had superseded her code letters.
Statendam's cruises in the winter of 1933–34 included a 15-day voyage to the West Indies and Caribbean ports in South America that left Hoboken on 23 December 1933,[28] another to South America that left New York on 10 January 1934,[29] and another to the Mediterranean that left New York on 9 February. The Mediterranean cruise carried more than 500 passengers,[30] and included a visit to Piraeus in Greece.[31]
On 13 October 1935, Statendam arrived in Hoboken carrying in her specie room £ 948,000 in gold from England and FF 362,000,000 in gold French francs from France: the equivalent of US$ 29 million. The next day the gold was taken from the ship in armoured cars to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.[32]
In January 1936 NASM reclassified SS Rotterdam (1908), SS Volendam and SS Veendam (1922), as cabin class ships, and announced that Statendam would become cabin class that May, after she completed her cruising season. Her one-way fares would be reduced from $194.50 to $173.50 in the summer season, and from $185.50 to $165.50 in the off-season. NASM was the last major shipping line to adopt cabin class.[33]
NASM planned for Statendam to leave from New York on 6 February 1936 to repeat its cruise to the Mediterranean. But shipping companies became concerned at a threat of war in the region. In October 1935, Norddeutscher Lloyd cancelled SS Columbus (1922)' winter cruise to the Mediterranean and replaced it with one to South America. Canadian Pacific made the same decision for RMS Empress of Britain (1930), and switched RMS Empress of Australia (1919)'s winter cruise plans to the Caribbean. Hamburg America Line revised SS Reliance's round the World cruise to go via South Africa instead of the Mediterranean. By the end of October, NASM had 110 passengers booked to go on Statendam to the Mediterranean, but on 2 November the company followed its competitors by cancelling the cruise. Instead Statendam announced a series of nine Caribbean cruises, ranging from five to 18 days, starting on 21 December 1935.[34]
on 5 September 1937 Statendam reached Hoboken from Rotterdam carrying 1,517 passengers. This set a record number not only for the ship, but also for any ship arriving at Hoboken since the First World War.[35] On 19 December 1937 Statendam was leaving New York to start a Caribbean cruise when she and the Matson Line refrigerated cargo ship Golden Cloud were involved in a collision. Statendam had left port in good visibility, but just beyond the Ambrose Lightship she ran into fog, and reduced speed to 11 kn. At about 1500 hrs Golden Cloud gave one long blast of her whistle and came into sight through the fog. Statendams Master, Captain George Barendse, ordered her engines full astern, but Golden Clouds stern hit Statendam 12 ft above the waterline.[36] Neither ship was significantly damaged, and both continued their journeys.[3] Her Caribbean cruises for that season continued until late April 1938.[37]
