The combined power output of her four engines was rated at 2,772 NHP,[4] and gave her a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h), which enabled her to sail between New York and Hamilton in about 40 hours.

[1] Her public areas included a cinema, stage, dance floors, swimming pool and gymnasium.

[1] Furness, Withy had intended to run Bermuda between New York and Hamilton only seasonally, from December to May, and use her as a cruise ship for the rest of the year.

The ship was partly sunk by opening her seacocks, preventing the fire from reaching her lower decks or igniting her bunkers, but the upper decks were consumed and the fire threatened to spread to buildings on the opposite side of Front Street.

One person, the ship's assistant barber, was killed in the fire, which gutted much of Bermuda's passenger accommodation.

Her hull and main engines were undamaged, [3] and she was towed back to Belfast, where Workman, Clark and Company began to rebuild her superstructure and overhaul her.

The brigade fought the blaze but it spread, forcing firemen to withdraw from the ship after barely an hour.

[10] Workman, Clark bought the wreck, removed her engines and some of her fittings and sold her hulk for scrap.

[12] However, on 30 April 1933 her two tow lines broke,[3] and Bermuda drifted ashore on the Badcall Islands in Eddrachillis Bay, Sutherland.