MS Stockholm (1941)

In November 1936 the Swedish American Line placed an order for the new Stockholm at Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico, Italy, with the delivery date projected to be in March 1939. On 29 May 1938 she was launched from dry dock and towed to the fitting out berth.[1][2]

For reasons that are still unknown, the Stockholm caught fire during the night of 19 December 1938 in her fitting-out berth. Strong winds and toxic gasses generated by the fire hampered the firefighting efforts, and the firefighters were left with no choice but to spray water on the ship from the outside, hoping that it would extinguish the fire. Eventually the large amounts of water pumped on the ship caused her to lose stability and sink in her berth.[1][9] Inspection of the wreck after the fire revealed that—apart from certain engine components— the ship was beyond salvage, and she had to be scrapped. Parts of the vessel that couldn't be reused was scrapped by 1939.[6]

Despite the loss of the near-complete ship, the Swedish American Line was not prepared to give up on their new ship.[6] After negotiations with the shipyard it was decided that Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico would begin construction of another ship (also to be named Stockholm) based on the same plans as before, with the salvageable parts of the burnt-out ship and equipment not yet installed onboard utilized in the construction of the new Stockholm.[9][10]

The new Stockholm was launched on 10 March 1940, when World War II was already raging in Europe. Construction proceeded regardless of the war, and the ship was ready for delivery to her owners in October 1941.[4][6] She completed her trial runs in the Swedish American Line livery, but ultimately the company saw no point in taking delivery of the vessel—the war had caused transatlantic services to be suspended, and it was possible that the ship could not even be safely transferred to neutral Sweden from Italy.[11] As a result, the Stockholm was sold to the Italian government on 3 November 1941, renamed MS Sabaudia and converted to a troopship.[4]

Externally the Stockholm was designed with a contemporary, somewhat streamlined appearance. Her forward superstructure was rounded, first raising by one deck from the level of the bow below the forward mast and further back by two more levels. In the 1938 ship the bridge was located on a separate deck on the top of the ship, but on the 1941 ship it was decided to move it down by one deck, giving the ship a more streamlined appearance.[3] The lower-location bridge combined with the ship's other design features made the 1941 Stockholm resemble a smaller version of North German Lloyd's 1929- and 1930-built Blue Riband winners SS Bremen and SS Europa.

For the interior of their new ship, the Swedish American Line decided to adapt the axial layout with a wide central passage: made possible by splitting the funnel uptakes, that had been successfully utilized in the French liners SS l'Atlantique and SS Normandie. On the Stockholm this construction was used to perhaps an even greater practicality than on her predecessors, with the author Philip Dawson praising her interior layout as being "remarkably straightfordward" and stating she would have been "a great success" had she ever entered commercial service.[12] Like SAL's 1928-built Kungsholm, the Stockholm was decorated in modernist art deco style.[12]