The North American was 280 feet (85 m) in length, had a 47-foot (14 m) beam, and drew 17 feet 6 inches (5.33 m) She was equipped with a 2,200 indicated horsepower quadruple expansion steam engine and three coal-burning Scotch boilers. In 1923 the boilers were converted to burn oil.
In 1963 the North American was sold to the Canadian Holiday Co. of Erie, Pennsylvania. The company used her in cross-lake service between Erie, Pennsylvania and Port Dover, Ontario for one year until she was retired in 1964. After being retired from service the North American was involved with purchasing deals of uncertain nature, and was finally sold at public auction to the Seafarers International Union in 1967 and she was to be used as a training ship at Piney Point, Maryland.
While the North American was on the North Atlantic being towed to Piney Point, she unexpectedly sank on September 4, 1967. The location was 25 miles (40 km) northeast from Nantucket Light, where the bottom is at 400 feet (120 m). The wreck still remains at this location.
In July 2006, a research team aboard Quest Marine’s R/V Quest located the "North American" close to the edge of the continental shelf, approximately 140 miles (230 km) off the New England coast in 250 feet (76 m) of water.
Famous quotes containing the words north american, north and/or american:
“The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“New York is a meeting place for every race in the world, but the Chinese, Armenians, Russians, and Germans remain foreigners. So does everyone except the blacks. There is no doubt but that the blacks exercise great influence in North America, and, no matter what anyone says, they are the most delicate, spiritual element in that world.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)