SS American (1900) - Early Career

Early Career

At the start of her American-Hawaiian career, American sailed in scheduled service from New York and Philadelphia around South America via the Straits of Magellan, up to San Francisco and from there to Honolulu. Along the way, she was refueled with coal at Saint Lucia in the British West Indies and at Coronel in Chile. The Chilean coal was often of lesser quality which burned too quickly and dangerously sent sparks flying from the ship's funnel; the quality and fire danger were key reasons that all subsequent American-Hawaiian ships used oil instead of coal for fuel.

The early American-Hawaiian voyages averaged about 70 days in each direction from New York to San Francisco, which was about 55 days shorter than the typical time required for sailing ships. Insurers initially made the company pay a 6% premium for taking its large ships through the treacherous 300-nautical-mile (560 km) channel in the Straits of Magellan, rather than the safer passage around Cape Horn. But by 1903, American-Hawaiian's safe operation and experience on the route allowed the company to negotiate a 3½% rate, just a ½% surcharge over the standard rate of 3%. The experience on the route also paid off in shorter transit times: American set a record time with a 59-day New York-to-San Francisco passage in 1901. However, typical times for the trip were just over 50 days by 1903.

In May 1905, after two years of negotiations, American-Hawaiian signed a contract with the Tehuantepec National Railway of Mexico, abandoning the Straits of Magellan route in favor of the Tehuantepec Route. Shipments on the Tehuantepec Route would arrive at Mexican ports—Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, for eastbound cargo, and Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, for westbound cargo—and would traverse the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's narrowest point, on the railroad. Eastbound shipments were primarily sugar and pineapple from Hawaii, while westbound cargoes were more general in nature.

After the United States occupation of Veracruz on 21 April 1914 (which found six American-Hawaiian ships in Mexican ports), the Huerta-led Mexican government closed the Tehuantepec National Railway to American shipping. This loss of access, coupled with the fact that the Panama Canal was not yet open, caused American-Hawaiian to return to its historic route of sailing around South America via the Straits of Magellan in late April. With the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August, American-Hawaiian ships switched to taking that route. In October 1915, landslides closed the Panama Canal and all American-Hawaiian ships, including American, returned to the Straits of Magellan route again.

American's exact movements from this time through early 1917 are unclear. She may have been in the half of the American-Hawaiian fleet that was chartered for transatlantic service. She may also have been in the group of American-Hawaiian ships chartered for service to South America, delivering coal, gasoline, and steel in exchange for coffee, nitrates, cocoa, rubber, and manganese ore. However, when the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the entire American-Hawaiian fleet, including American, was requisitioned by the United States Shipping Board, which then returned the ships for operation by American-Hawaiian.