However, in April of that year C. van der Giessen & Zonen's shipyard in Krimpen aan den IJssel laid down the first of a class of new ships of about 6,850 GRT for NASM.

Each member of the class was to be driven by two Brown-Curtis steam turbines, driving a single screw via double-reduction gearing.

Van der Giessen launched the first ship in October 1920 as Burgerdijk, completed her in June 1921,[1] and went on to build three more members of the class.

[2][3][4] Industrieële Maatschappij 'De Noord' in Alblasserdam built two,[5] including the final member of the class, Boschdijk, which was completed in October 1922.

[13] On 3 April 1936, three teenage boys from Kips Bay, Manhattan, stowed away on the NASM transatlantic liner Veendam, in the mistaken belief that she was going to Brazil.

They were discovered the next day, and NASM at first said that the boys would be landed at Plymouth, England, where the US Consul would arrange their return.

[15] Beemsterdijk was westbound to Hoboken, so the three stowaways were transferred by motor launch from Veendam to the cargo ship.

Her movements for the next few weeks are not clear, but on 27 June she left New Orleans carrying general cargo and sailed via Bermuda, where she joined Convoy BKX 56.

[18] On the morning of 26 January she was in St George's Channel off the west coast of Pembrokeshire, at a position that her navigators believed to be about 12 nautical miles (22 km) off the Smalls Lighthouse, when she struck an Allied mine that blew a hole in her hull in way of holds 5 and 6 aft.

At 15:15 hrs she reached the position Beemsterdijk had given, and was soon joined by three other vessels, and made contact with one of them, the Royal Navy Fairmile B motor launch ML 168.

[9] The Royal Navy base at Milford Haven sent two Dutch tugs: Goliath at 11:50 hrs, and L Smit & Co's Seine shortly after.

[9] The Saint-class tug Caroline Moller (formerly HMS St Mabyn) and three launches were sent from Falmouth, Cornwall.

[9] As the wind increased on the morning of 27 January, the bulkhead between Beemsterdijk's holds 5 and 6 collapsed under the weight of water at about 09:30 hrs.

Before the men reached the boats, the ship rapidly listed to starboard and sank stern first, sinking the lifeboats with her.

At times it drifted close to being dashed on rocks, so the men removed two boards from the deck, which they used to paddle to safety.

On 30 January, Irish Coast Guards at Look Out Post 17 on Brownstown Head in County Waterford sighted the raft and alerted the RNLI station at Dunmore East.

A local hotel accommodated the three men, and a doctor from Waterford and members of the Irish Red Cross Society looked after them.

The Missions to Seamen accommodated Fourth Engineer Willem van't Hoff and boatswain's boy Stanley Gillard.

Third Officer Willem Reijers, assistant engineer Paulus Tanis, and oiler Jan Witte were later reburied in the Dutch war graves section of Mill Hill Cemetery in North London.