The buyers intended to tow Olympian around South America to New York, rehabilitate it, and run it on Long Island Sound.

Olympian and Alaskan followed designs which had been successful on Long Island Sound and on Chesapeake Bay but which were untested in the Pacific Northwest, where different types of inland and riverine vessels had been developed to meet local conditions.

[5] Olympian was driven by a single “vertical surface” condensing walking beam steam engine, with a cylinder 70 in (180 cm) in diameter and a piston stroke of 12.5 ft (3.8 m).

[5] The main plant developed 2,100 indicated horsepower on the steamer's formal trial trip, riving the vessel at 21 miles per hour (34 km/h) on 45 pounds steam.

[11] Talk was that the old steamer Isabel (446 GT),[17] long out of service in Gig Harbor, W.T., would be taken to British Columbia to carry coal to Victoria from mines at Nanaimo, BC mainly to supply Olympian.

[3] When Olympian arrived in Puget Sound, no dry dock or other facility existed in Oregon or Washington large enough to accommodate the vessel for repair.

Co. planned to steam the vessel south to San Francisco, California to be placed on a dry dock for repairs, including hull scrapping, caulking, and repainting.

[19] When the time came in March 1885 for Olympian to dry dock in San Francisco, its insurance carriers threatened by telegram to cancel their $260,000 policy on the steamer if the extensions of the main deck, called “guards”, outboard from the edge of actual hull, were not removed before beginning the voyage to San Francisco.

[14] Captain Wilson, then in command of the inland sidewheeler North Pacific (488 GT),[24] and his purser, would be shifted over to be in charge of Olympian.

[26] Olympian arrived in Victoria, BC on the afternoon of March 25, 1884 from Port Townsend, taking two and one quarter hours to cover the distance between the two cities.

[5] In early August 1884, OR&N advertised a reduction in its passenger fares to Victoria on Olympian and North Pacific, to $4, or $5 round trip.

at daylight, and passed Cape Flattery, turning southbound at 11:00 a.m.[34] Olympian returned to the Puget Sound area in late May 1885.

[36] On June 4, 1885, at 1:30 a.m., coming in for a landing at Seattle, the mate in charge miscalculated the distance and Olympian smashed into the dock.

They now have two colossal monuments of Villard's folly to grace the granite foundation of the "Castle in Spain," in the Webfoot metropolis, which was to have eclipsed all modern hotels.

[48] Olympian did not do well on the Inside Passage, being too lightly built for its conditions, which were much more challenging than Chesapeake Bay for which the vessel was designed and best suited.

[49] In February and March 1887 Olympian was being overhauled, and additional staterooms were being installed, to prepare the steamer for service to Alaska to begin at the end of May, under the command of Capt.

[52] Olympian soon returned to the Pacific Northwest under Captain Carroll, reaching Port Townsend on Sunday night, April 17, 1887, proceeding on to Seattle at 3:00 a.m. the next morning.

[56] A day or two before August 23, 1887, Olympian arrived at Port Townsend from points in southern Puget Sound with a small number of passengers, for its last trip to Alaska.

Even so, a day or two before November 18, 1887, Olympian was three hours late out of Seattle to Port Townsend, carrying 1,000 hogs bound for Victoria.

[36] On Sunday, December 16, 1888, Olympian was placed in the dry dock at Esquimalt, British Columbia to have the hull scraped clean of marine growth which impeded its speed.

[67] In May 1890 waiters on all Puget Sound steamers, including Olympian, went out on strike, seeking an increase in their wages from $25 to $30 per month.

[73] There had been talk that Olympian had not been profitable for some time, and that the company was saving money by not operating the steamer until trade picked up.

OR&N ruled out Esquimalt dry-dock for the work, saying that it had received "shabby treatment" when dry dock had taken in another vessel, apparently in greater need of repair, ahead of Olympian.

[76] OR&N then decided to use the dry dock at Esquimalt, but this does not seem to have occurred either, as Olympian was still moored up at Seattle and in need of repair in late February 1891, with OR&N reported to be still undecided as to where to have the work done.

[79][80][81] A major dispute, in full view of the passengers, broke out among the officers and crew of the Olympian just after the steamer had left Victoria on October 20, 1891.

[82] When Smith attempted to forbid the a deckhand from using the firehose on this occasion, a dispute broke out, which led to the exchange of strong words and fighting between the deck crew and the engineering staff.

[86] One source reports that “the difficulty was not adjusted until every steamer of any prominence on Puget Sound was tied up.”[87] The pilot and the engineer unions were at odds with each other, and it took some time to settle their differences.

In July 1897 there was talk that Olympian and Victorian which had been lying idle for years in Portland, could be placed into the Alaska service.

[96] Dimon planned to have Olympian towed around South America to New York, there to be renovated and returned to service as an excursion steamer.

[96] Before leaving in tow, heavy timber bracing were installed inside the steamer, and the sides of the vessel were covered over with rough lumber.