• A round trip on HAL’s North Pacific Coast passenger-cargo service took between 2-1/2 and 3 months to complete. The roughly 8,200 nautical mile voyage between Rotterdam / Southampton and Vancouver was via Cristobal (Canal Zone), Los Angeles, and San Francisco.  On occasion, ships would call at Bermuda or other West Indies ports, and at times Oakland, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma, and/or Victoria.

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• On her inaugural North Pacific Coast voyage in April 1921, the Moerdyk (Capt. G.C. Herbschleb) transported 3,000 tons of submarine cable to Vancouver for the B.C. Telephone Company.  It was necessary to construct a special water tank in the No. 2 hold to preserve the cable lining from the tropical heat while transiting through the Caribbean.  Within a week of arriving in Vancouver, BC Tel had placed this cable along the bottom of the Salish Sea to establish a new telephone connection between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.  

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• On her way back to Europe, the Moerdyk’s cargo included 7,000 tons of grain loaded at the Vancouver Harbour Commissioners Grain Terminal, 24,000 boxes of BC and Washington apples (shipped in her refrigerated holds at $1 per box) taken on in Vancouver and Tacoma plus 800 cases of Puget Sound eggs (at $1.50 per case or 5 cents per dozen) also loaded in Tacoma.