The launch of the Holland-America liner Nieuw Amsterdam on September 28, 1905 was anything but graceful. After she went down the ways at Harland & Wolff in Belfast the wind blew her broadside up river toward the Workman, Clark & Company shipyard, she ran down a buoy and then grounded. The tugs pulled her free by the stern, but then she hit the pierhead at the entrance to Spencer's Basin. She was again pulled free, but blocked traffic in the river for the next hour or so. She was finally brought under control and was berthed in the fitting out quay at Harland & Wolff, however there was quite a bit of damage done to the hull. The unlucky launch did not foretell an unlucky ship, she survived the Great War and was finally scrapped in 1932.