The SS United States, without its smokestacks, at the port of Mobile, Alabama, before sinking on Wednesday.
Destin-Fort Walton Beach/Screenshot by NPR
hide caption
Destin-Fort Walton Beach/Screenshot by NPR
The world’s fastest liner crossed the Atlantic Ocean in less than four days. On Wednesday, it sank in five hours.
The SS United States, launched in 1951 and longer than the RMS Titanic, once carried four presidents, the Mona Lisa and a list of 20th century film stars. After decades of rusting and facing a scrap heap, its officials reached a deal to transform the ship into what is expected to be the world’s largest artificial reef off the coast of Okaloosa County, Florida.
Crews removed the plugs from the ship’s hull, allowing it to fill with water without using explosives. After hours of delay, his final moments passed quickly. The ship tilted sideways and dove beneath the waves.
The sinking marks a bittersweet coda to the era of gleaming behemoths that gracefully traversed the seas. It’s also the latest effort by coastal communities to lure thrill-seeking tourists away from international destinations, an effort that has so far generated surprising economic benefits.
“For those of us who love wrecks and ships in general, it was much more tragic to see it rusting on the dock,” Karen Flynn, a wreck diver and marine science enthusiast, told NPR.
American actor and comedian Milton Berle clowns on the deck of the SS United States during an east-west crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on July 15, 1952.
Ingeborg Talliarek/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
hide caption
Ingeborg Talliarek/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
His dive club, Atlantic Wreck Divers, based in Maryland, booked tickets and a charter boat just days after a date for the ship’s sinking. The “deployment,” as the sinking is diplomatically described, has been set.
“We did everything we could in the world,” Flynn said. “It’ll just be a unique and new thing for us to dive into.”
A potential tourism boom
In many ways, Flynn and his club are exactly the type of visitor Okaloosa County hopes to attract: divers planning to stay overnight and who will spend a considerable amount of money on equipment, food and lodging during their trip.
Florida County has sunk hundreds of artificial reefs, many of which are ships or boats.
“It’s definitely the biggest one we’ve done,” said Jennifer Adams, Okaloosa County tourism director.
The United States, which is nearly 1,000 feet long, is now the centerpiece of this watery collection.
The reefs bring about $10 million to $12 million in annual economic benefits to the county, Adams said. She expects that number to increase now and the county to recoup its $10 million investment in the United States. in “a few years”.
To deliver on that promise, the liner’s transformation was designed to attract tourists, marine life and federal regulators, Adams said. Its hull was stripped of toxic materials and bulky components, and the ship itself was placed just over 20 nautical miles from the beaches of the city of Destin.
“It should rest where its upper decks…are not outside the limits of recreational diving,” said Flynn, the diver.
SS United States seen at its former berth in Philadelphia.
SS Conservatory of the United States
hide caption
SS Conservatory of the United States
Panhandle counties are now getting several expensive ships that could attract tourists. The SS United States joins the USS Oriskany – an 888-foot post-war aircraft carrier sunk by the US Navy off the coast of Pensacola in 2006 – and is expected to make the area the first and second largest artificial reef in the world.
Since 1940, Florida alone has created more than 4,000 artificial reefs, according to a tally by the state Fish and Wildlife Commission. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed 2017 data on dive tourism around artificial and natural reefs. He calculated that visits to just a few of these reefs generated nearly $1 billion in annual economic benefits.
University of Florida economist Andrew Ropicki says Okaloosa and its surrounding counties have a “critical mass” of these planned wrecks.
“You can capture more tourism dollars than (other areas),” he said.
But Ropicki also warned that overinvestment in the reef could eventually lead to diminishing returns, as visitors’ interests change or they become overwhelmed by choice.
Adams, the Okaloosa tourism director, told NPR that plans are already in the works to sink “five or six” additional artificial reefs after the SS United States.
For now, though, she hopes the sight of such a unique ship beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico will be enough to draw the crowds.
Ruler of the seas
Wednesday’s wreck brings a much more complicated set of emotions for Susan Gibbs. She is the head of the SS United States Conservancy – caretaker of much of the ill-fated stretch of ship docked in Philadelphia.
“I am filled with a complex mix of grief but also gratitude, pride and hope,” she said before the sinking.
Gibbs is the granddaughter of William Francis Gibbs, who worked obsessively on the ocean liner nearly a century ago. For a short time, after the end of World War II and before the jet age, its creation was the pride of the American transportation industry.
“He would freely admit that he loved this ship a thousand times more than my grandmother,” she said.
Now, seeing his grandfather’s coronation stripped and scuttled seems “complicated.” His organization sold the SS United States to Okaloosa County for $1 million in 2024, a fraction of its original cost.
But for Gibbs, it’s a better fate for the ship than a scrapyard.
“We felt that reefing was by far the most dignified solution,” she said.
Wreck diver Karen Flynn agrees. She says that even beneath the waves, the ship will still have a sense of grandeur.
“There’s something about looking over that bridge … and seeing the nose of the bow, and then just seeing the blue in front of it,” she said. “It’s going to be a spectacular shot.”
Gn headline
