SS Plancius

	Plancius in 1924 as a passenger ship
History
Name	Plancius
Namesake	Petrus Plancius
Owner	Koninklijke Paketvaart-Mij
Operator	1924: Koninklijke Paketvaart-Mij; 1942: Royal Netherlands Navy;
Port of registry	1924: Batavia
Route	Dutch East Indies
Builder	Nederlandsche SM, Amsterdam
Yard number	166
Launched	1922
Completed	3 March 1924
Commissioned	9 April 1942 as submarine depot ship
Reclassified	1942 as submarine depot ship
Fate	sold in 1958 for scrapping to a company in Hong Kong
General characteristics
Type	Passenger ship
Displacement	5,955 long tons (6,051 t)
Length	128.11 m (420 ft 4 in)
Beam	16.83 m (55 ft 3 in)
Decks	3
Installed power	5,800 ihp (4,300 kW)
Propulsion	2 × screws; 2 × Werkspoor quadruple expansion steam engines;
Speed	15.5 knots (28.7 km/h; 17.8 mph)
Boats & landing; craft carried	12 × lifeboats; 2 × dinghies;
Crew	363 during war operations
Armament	Installed after militarization:; 1 × 7.5 cm (3.0 in) cannon; 2 × 20 mm (0.79 in) Oerlikon cannon; 4 x 12.7 mm (0.50 in) machine guns ; 6 x 7.7 mm (0.30 in) machine guns;

SS Plancius was a passenger steamship that was launched in the Netherlands in 1922. She was built for the Koninklijke Paketvaart-Maatschappij (KPM, the "Royal Packet Navigation Company"), who operated her in the Dutch East Indies. Plancius was named after Petrus Plancius, a famous Dutch-Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman.

In 1942, after the fall of Java, the Royal Netherlands Navy requisitioned her, initially to serve as a command ship for the navy in Ceylon. After the loss of the former MS Columbia however, it was decided to convert Plancius into a submarine tender.