The 4368 GRT steamship was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast , Northern Ireland under the name Asiatic , but was launched on April 30, 1881 as Arabic (I). She was the identical sister ship of the Coptic and the first ship of the White Star Line with a steel hull . Completion took place in August 1881.
The Arabic was a 131.12 meter long and 12.86 meter wide passenger and mail ship with a chimney, four masts with the rigging of a barque and a single propeller . She was powered by two twin cylinder compound steam engines from J. Jack & Company from the Victoria Engine Works in Liverpool , which developed 550 hp and allowed a speed of 14 knots. The coal was burned in three steam boilers . The coal bunkers could hold 730 tons. The passenger accommodations were designed for 180 passengers in first and 900 in third class. The ship had a total of three decks and seven bulkheads , which divided the hull into eight watertight compartments.
On September 10, 1881, the Arabic sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to New York under the command of Captain Pearne . The third and final descent on this route took place on December 2, 1881. She was then chartered to the Occidental & Oriental Steamship Company, for which she drove from Liverpool to Hong Kong and San Francisco via the Suez Canal from February 4, 1882 . From March 30, 1887, it sailed again the North Atlantic from London via Queenstown to New York and from May 12, 1887, it again operated the Liverpool-New York route. In 1888 there was another change to the route San Francisco - Yokohama - Hong Kong.
In February 1890 the Arabic was sold for 65,000 pounds sterling to the Dutch Holland-America Line , which renamed it Spaarndam (I). The ship was now designed to carry 60 passengers in the first, 92 in the second and 893 in the third class. On March 29, 1890, she sailed from Rotterdam to New York on her first voyage for the new owners . In 1899 the first class was abolished and the second class introduced. On February 1, 1901, the Spaarndam cast off on her last voyage from Rotterdam to New York. In August of the same year, the ship was bought by Thomas W. Ward Ltd. wrecked in Preston .
