All four ships, dubbed "The Four Sisters" and "The Big Four" were noted as the finest serving the West Coast and were of advanced technology.

Launch was on 24 March 1932 and delivery to Grace Line's subsidiary Panama Mail Steamship Company on 27 October 1932.

[14][15] Even in wartime gray, the ship retained her elegant oceanliner lines: Santa Rosa made 21 voyages from the east coast of the US from 1942-1945: one to Europe, one to Australia, one to India, and three to Africa.

Santa Lucia was under sub-bareboat charter from WSA by the U.S. Navy operating as USS Leedstown east of Algiers when attacked by German aircraft on 8 November 1942.

[22] After her war service she underwent repair and refit at the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company prior to redelivery to her owners.

[11] Athinai in her Typaldos Line livery appears briefly in a scene of the port of Piraeus, Greece, in the 1963 film The Bullfighter Advances.

[23] In 1968 the Typaldos Lines owners were arrested and the company disbanded after the Greek government investigation of the SS Heraklion incident found them guilty of manslaughter and negligence.

The company's ships were taken over and sold except for two, including SS Athinai, who attracted no buyers and were subsequently laid up in initially at Kynosoura and later Eleusis Bay, West of Athens.

After a decade of neglect, and with fittings that did not appear to be out of place on a 1912 built ship, Athinai needed very little conversion work for filming the Titanic's interiors.

[24][25] Her bows were painted to resemble Titanic and she was sprayed with green foam to simulate 68 years on the ocean floor.