When we last brought you word of the SS United States, the future of the storied vessel was unclear. Since 1996, the 990 foot (302 meter) ship — the largest ocean liner ever to be constructed in the United States — had been wasting away at Pier 82 in Philadelphia. While the SS United States Conservancy was formed in 2009 to support the ship financially and attempt to redevelop it into a tourist attraction, their limited funding meant little could be done to restore or even maintain it. In January of 2024, frustrated by the lack of progress, the owners of the pier took the Conservancy to court and began the process of evicting the once-great liner.
It was hoped that a last-minute investor might appear, allowing the Conservancy to move the ship to a new home. But unfortunately, the only offer that came in wasn’t quite what fans of the vessel had in mind: Florida’s Okaloosa County offered $1 million to purchase the ship so they could sink it and turn it into the world’s largest artificial reef.
The Conservancy originally considered it a contingency offer, stating that they would only accept it if no other options to save the ship presented themselves. But by October of 2024, with time running out, they accepted Okaloosa’s offer as a more preferable fate for the United States than being scrapped.
It at least means the ship will remain intact — acting not only as an important refuge for aquatic life, but as a destination for recreational divers for decades to come. The Conservancy has also announced plans to open a museum in Okaloosa, where artifacts from the ship will be on display.
Laying a Behemoth to Rest
Sinking a ship is easy enough, it happens accidentally all the time. But intentionally sinking a ship, technically referred to as scuttling, in such a way that it sits upright on the bottom is another matter entirely. Especially for a ship the size of the SS United States, which will officially become both the largest intact ocean liner on the seafloor (beating out HMHS Britannic and her sister RMS Titanic) and the largest artificial reef in the world (taking the title from the USS Oriskany) when it eventually goes down.
The SS United States is currently in Mobile, Alabama, where it is being prepared for scuttling by Modern American Recycling Services and Coleen Marine. After a complete survey of the ship’s structural state, holes will be strategically cut throughout the hull. These will let the ship take on water in a more predictable way during the sinking, and also allow access to the inside of the hull for both sea life and divers. Internally, hatches and bulkheads will be removed for the same reason, though areas deemed too dangerous for recreational divers may be sealed off for safety.
At the same time, the ship must be thoroughly cleaned before it makes its final plunge into the waters off of Florida’s coast. Any remaining fuel or lubricants must be removed, as will any loose paint. Plastics that could break down, and anything that might contain traces of toxins such as lead or mercury, will also be stripped from the ship. In the end, the goal is to have very little left beyond the hull itself and machinery that’s too large to remove.
Finally, there’s the issue of depth. While the final resting place of the SS United States has yet to be determined, the depth is limited by the fact that Okaloosa wants to encourage recreational divers to visit. The upper decks of the ship must be located at a depth that’s reasonable for amateur divers to reach safely, but at the same time, the wreck can’t present a hazard to navigation for ships on the surface.
Once on the bottom, the goal is to have the upper decks of the ship at a depth of approximately 55 feet (17 m), making it accessible to even beginner divers. Unfortunately, the ship’s iconic swept-back funnels stand 65 feet (20 m) off the deck. While the tips of the funnels breaking through the surface of the water might make for a striking visual, it would of course be completely impractical.
As such, the funnels and mast of the United States have just recently been removed. But thankfully, they aren’t being sent off to the scrapper. Instead, they will become key components of what the Conservancy is calling the “SS United States Museum and Visitor Experience.”
Honoring America’s Flagship
While the SS United States will welcome visitors willing to get their feet wet, not everyone who wants to explore the legacy of the ship will have to strap on a scuba tank. As part of the deal to purchase the ship, Okaloosa County has been working with the Conservancy to develop a museum dedicated to the ship and the cultural milieu in which she was developed and built.
Naturally, the museum will house many artifacts from the ship’s career. The Conservancy is already in the process of recalling many of the items in their collection which were loaned out while the ship was docked in Philadelphia. But uniquely, the building will also incorporate parts of the ship itself, including the funnels, mast, anchor, and at least one of the propellers.
Combined with some clever architecture by Thinc Design, the idea is for the museum’s structure to invoke the look of the ship itself. The Conservancy has released a number of concept images that depict various approaches being considered, the most striking of which essentially recreates the profile of the great liner with its bow extended out over the Florida waters.
A Bittersweet Farewell
To be sure, this is not the fate that the SS United States Conservancy had in mind when they purchased the ship. Over the years, they put forth a number of proposals that would have seen the ship either turned into a static attraction like the Queen Mary or returned to passenger service. But the funding always fell through, and with each year that passed the ship’s condition only got worse, making its potential restoration even more expensive.
It’s an unfortunate reality that many great ships have ended up being sold for scrap. Consider the RMS Olympic; despite being the last surviving ship of her class after the sinking of her sisters Titanic and Britannic, and having a long and storied career that included service as a troop ship during the First World War, she ended up having her fittings auctioned off before ultimately being torn to pieces in the late 1930s. It was an ending so unceremonious that the exact date of her final demolition has been lost to time. Meanwhile her sunken sisters, safe from the scrapper’s reach on the sea floor, continue to be studied and explored to this day.
In an ideal world, the SS United States would be afforded the same treatment as the USS New Jersey — it would be lovingly restored and live on as a museum ship for future generations to appreciate. But failing that, it would seem that spending the next century or so playing host to schools of fish and awestruck scuba divers is a more fitting end to America’s flagship than being turned into so many paperclips.
It’s not immediately obvious to me why having the funnels protrude above water level would be a problem. If anything, they’d serve as navigational aids for passing ships. Maybe they’re worried about the funnels corroding below the waterline and collapsing?
I know. Navigation hazards, both visible and sub-surface, exist all over the place, and are marked on charts, etc. And as this ship is going to have recreational divers showing up every day, it’s not like they can place it in a shipping lane. If anything, the funnels sticking up 10 meters above the waterline would be a somewhat visible deterrent to navigators.
But whatever. I’m sure that whoever made the argument for cutting off the funnels had a valid reason for doing so.
AToN needs to be charted, which can be quite expensive to do. NOAA are a bit absurd about accuracy. Also it should be lighted if they were above the waterline as it would pose a substantial threat to rec vessels especially at night and with beach/waves/buildings behind it, it would be easy to miss.
The funnels were remove for what is going to be part of the land based museum.
The wiki page says they were aluminum and welded to the steel of the ship and it caused the welders a lot of grief. Some kind of process which prevented galvanic corrosion. That page is a really interesting read.
Lets say it was the Mayor of Los Angeles. Now what?
“Maybe they’re worried about the funnels corroding below the waterline and collapsing?”
Or possibly just collapsing due to repeated wind and wave stresses. Plus, I mean, 55 feet of water depth is quite a lot. Even huge cargo container ships have drafts smaller than that. So the reef without the funnels isn’t really a risk, but the funnels are.
Yes, that may be a plausible cause.
Any part of the ship that would be above water would be ultimately destroyed by the action of wind and wave. Look what happened to her sister ship SS America, pounded to pieces on a reef.
Did you all ever think they intentionally just wanted to save the funnels for the museum? I for one dont want it to be sunk but it is what it is. But to have a part of the ship still intact for people to see for generations is better then nothing.
Open de valve by engine room then allow water come in. Automatically the ship is sinking slowly. You don’t need to place dynamite, just open the valve at engine room..
Yes, but will it sink in the desired orientation?
Yeah, but…explosives!
Always a good idea.
The funnels would definitely corrode quickly and collapse. Use the United States’ older running mate, the SS America, as an example. The America was wrecked off of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands in 1994. Her funnel quickly deteriorated, and had fallen completely off of the wreck after about ten years. Now mind you, the America was unintentionally wrecked above water, while the United States will be fully submerged on purpose. But either way, the funnels would pose a hazard, both to divers on the ship as well as other vessels.
Driving over the bridge into Philadelphia just isn’t the same without seeing the SS United States hulking over the Delaware River without the city skyline in the background. A real shame it’s gone, that was quite the landmark
The blimp used to be in Houston when I was a girl. I still miss seeing it today. It lives in Ohio now. I feel your pain ❤️
By the time it gets put in place I will be too old to attempt a dive. Sadly. I’ve dived to a number of intentionally scuttled ships in the Caribbean and it’s pretty cool to have that experience.
At least it’s being preserved in some fashion rather than cut up for metal.
Good for some low background steel.
idk about that. as i understand it only steel that was under water during nuclear testing is clean.
It’s steel that was made before nuclear testing started.
It just so happens that the stuff underwater hasn’t been used up yet.
However, atmospheric radiation levels have fallen back to to barely above natural levels, so low background steel is rarely needed anymore besides for super sensitive applications, where ultra-pure copper is usually used instead anyway.
Would have been better to pull it into service of the Jones Act
Fund it. She’s nowhere near ready to become operational.
Sinking the ship is shallow water to make it accessible to beginners strikes me as a profoundly bad idea; many idiots will go into the wreck, without proper training and equipement for overhead diving, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they will have regular fatalities because of that.
It’s very easy to get lost in such a ship, diving it safely requires cave training, redundant gas supplies (doubles with separate first stage regulators, or double side mount), laying guidelines or a permanent guideline, etc.
It you make it accessible to unqualified divers, they will go there, some of them will be stupid enough to go into the wreck, and some of those will die.
Fortunately this is the US where people are free to live their lives they way they want it to be. If you want to be a safety phascist then you’re free to immigrate into the EU. Did you know that in Germany you’re not allowed to drive a car without having a destination point set in your satnav ? Seriously, it’s § 30 Abs. 1 Satz 3 StVO. If you get caught just “driving around” you can be fined up to 5000€.
Found the troll. It says: “Unnützes Hin- und Herfahren ist innerhalb geschlossener Ortschaften verboten, wenn Andere dadurch belästigt werden.”
Which sounds pretty reasonable to me.
The amount of the fine, and that bit about the satnav are entirely made up, and as far as I can tell entirely false. The anti-pollution rules are real, though, and a reasonable response to the high population density in cities, IMO.
Thinking that Germany is an anti-car culture borders on the ridiculous. In the same set of rules, you also can’t drive your big rig on Sundays and holidays, which gives long-haul truckers a weekend but mostly frees up the highways for the rest of us to drive around like crazy. This is actually part of the rationale: to clear the highways for Sunday drivers.
So if you really want to drive around without purpose, head out on the Autobahn and drive as fast as you’d like to up into the twisties in the mountains. The scenery is stunning, the roads are well maintained, and you’ll be outside of a city so you’ll be allowed to repeatedly slam your car door loudly too, if that’s your thing. Freedom!
Wow! Even just idling your engine (say, during a tune-up) or closing the car’s door too loudly ist verboten!
“it is prohibited to run vehicle engines unnecessarily and to close vehicle doors with excessive noise.” (Google translation)
https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stvo_2013/__30.html
Every day I’m more thankful to be an American!
I know it’s very low quality bait but I’m feeling like answering because it’s a wonderful day and I just slammed my car door shut. So while I’m waiting to be arrested:
Have fun in your superior country 🤣🤣🤣 I’ll have laws that nobody cares about over 99% of “USA 2025” all day long haha
Just remember to be careful what you say on the internet in Germany. Someone called a politician a pimmel on twitter and was arrested, by 6 officers…
Are you trying to make the claim that there is no place in the US that has noise regulations or idling restrictions?
I wish they would enforce the noise regulations near me. At least at night. Let people have their fun in the day but let people get some sleep at night. (sorry to the night shifters, trying to be as fair to everyone as I can)
Your freedom to be annoying is curtailed by the rights of other to not be annoyed by you. That’s called “society”, & you should consider it.
Anyway, enjoy your 55mph “freeway” while the “no freedom” Germans drive without a speed limit on their Autobahn.
Das Beschnuppern der Sättel der Heimtrainer im Frauengymnasium ist verboten.
🤣🤣🤣
Spreading BS and not even able to spell fascist correctly…
What an embarrassing crock.
“Fortunately this is the US where people are free to live their lives they way they want it to be.”
Sure… unless you live, say, in North Carolina. As just one example, these corrupt hypocrites passed a law REQUIRING that new housing developments be encumbered by an HOA. If there’s an opposite to freedom, just ask anyone who was dumb enough to buy into an HOA what it is.
Granted I haven’t done diving in 20 years but getting out to a site like that isn’t trivial. I knew of no one that was diving that wasn’t certified and there were many sub-certifications for wreck diving, technical diving etc as well.
Also any company running charters out to sites like this will 100% look at your logbook and certifications.
I just do not think a lot of uncle moron unskilled divers have access to the speciality equipment, a boat with a compressor and navigation skills to even get there and NOT be at least somewhat competent to dive the site. Charter companies are not interested in having fatalities.
That said diving is inherently dangerous and a rather unforgiving environment so yeah accidents and fatalities do happen. But I think your assessment of many very unskilled divers going nuts and killing themselves all the time is a bit off base.
“That said diving is inherently dangerous”
About as dangerous as driving a car. And just as with driving it helps if you stick to the rules and make sure your equipment is maintained and checked.
I even think scuba diving has less accidents / fatalities per hour than driving.
There’s certainly a lot more training required for scuba. Though I learned to drive 30 years and more so, and scuba is what I’m learning now.
You know the deal – survival of the fittest.
“diving it safely requires cave training, redundant gas supplies (doubles with separate first stage regulators, or double side mount), laying guidelines or a permanent guideline, etc.”
Nope. Diving it safely requires wreck training (like PADI Wreck Specialty) and most importantly: sticking to the limits of that training. For a normal wreck dives, redundant gas supply is not necessary.
Yep. A reel and conservative air management are the key items.
There is something called “personal responsibility”. As long as you don’t hurt others, it doesn’t matter if you do something dangerous. Skydiving is also dangerous, do you want to ban that too? What about driving motorcycles, should we ban that too?
If people want to dive there, they should. And diving there doesn’t require any of those things. It’s easy to get in and out, just like a regular ship.
Except this ship is huge and getting lost inside is a very real possibility. If you’re doing any significant penetration (that’s what it’s called), you should treat it as a cave. PADI wreck specialty may be fine for a small wreck where you can easily find the way out in a few minutes at most, but that is not the case here.
I actually am cave and tech certified, and would love to dive this wreck, I’m just concerned people will get hurt because it is “accessable to recreational divers”. At the same time, it would be a shame if they close of lots of interesting areas to people what are properly certified, because they are deemed to dangerous for the novices.
Maybe a good compromise would be to allow properly certified divers full access, while recreational divers can go in with a guide?
I used to live down there, and Okaloosa county has more than a few big ships sunk out there for fishing and diving. It’s a reasonable thing to create new habitats and provide some tourist dollars. I’ve gotten to go fishing on a few wrecks for a school trip and there’s so much life just around them too. Once the toxic crap is out it’s just rusting metal.
I feel like this is a metaphor on multiple levels.
I second that.
That is sad to see, but all things eventually return to the dust. The museum will be a nice touch to remember a different era when ocean-liners were the way to travel in style. Now if you have to spent a couple of hours in an airport we complain a bit, or going to take 8 hours to cross the big pond… Need to get supersonic flight back :) .
Philly Seaport Museum, too, is a rusted hull of its former glory. It has been visibly misfiring on its few remaining financial cylinders at about the same rate the Philly Shipyard did, changing owners, directors, firing staff, hiring staff, etc etc.
I regularly drive pass both, the rusted hull/blight and the (mostly working) Philly Seaport Museum.
Let me get this straight: I’m supposed to sort soup cans out of my trash and into the recycling bin because it’s essential for “saving the earth,” but it’s OK to literally dump/abandon an entire ocean liner?
What an incredible waste of a mountain of steel and other metals, for which we already paid the energy cost (and carbon cost, for you earth huggers) for extraction and refinement.
“Well,” someone will chime in, “this is to grow coral reefs.” Maybe. Reefs do grow on wrecks. “Divers will visit” Cool. It will be a great attraction for a handful of people… until someone gets hurt, they sue, and future access is barred by lawyers or the nanny state.
Spin it how you want. This is shameful.
Somehow coral reefs managed to grow for hundreds of millions of years without decommissioned ships being part of their reproductive cycle. For crying out loud, a compost pile will happily dine on lawn clippings and banana peels… you don’t have to feed it premium dimensioned lumber from Lowes.
It’s about the carbon sequestration in the calcium carbonate coral, duh!
Seriously, though, recycled steel is worth a couple-hundred bucks per ton – if it’s precut into bite-sized chunks.
At about 45 thousand tons, the gross scrap value of the ship is close to a million dollars. It won’t take long for the economic impact on fishing and tourism to be bigger than that.
If this is so offensive to you, why didn’t you buy it? Oh, you don’t have that kind of change in your pockets? Then why do you care how other people spend their money?
And, last but not least: If you have to sort your soup cans, it’s because someone wants to look green, not because it’s economically viable.
Why wouldn’t you? Do you think having money spares you from others’ judgement? Do you think people exist in a vacuum, where their spending habits have zero effect on everyone else? I care about everything everywhere, because I am here on earth with it too.
Coral reefs do not grow on sand!!! There is always limestone etc that coral reefs grow on. Or sunken ships. It’s not getting in the drinking water. It’s not killing sea life it’s creating a home for sea life. Not just coral but tropical fish, but thousands of other species. So the could make it in to steel cans that will end up in the landfill. Sinking the ship is the best option.
“Somehow coral reefs managed to grow for hundreds of millions of years without”
I know, it’s amazing how fast we can destroy them! One would think they would’ve developed evolutionary defenses to explosives and giant ass weighted nets smashing them to bits. Bad planning on the coral reef’s part.
We (my employer) is dumping special steel cubes in the oceans on purpose, to grow coral reefs. It’s not shameful at all, it’s to help the environment. The ship is specifically prepared not to hard the environment.
You don’t have to sort soup cans out of the trash, most places remove metal from trash using magnets anyway, so there is no real upside to sorting the cans in the first place, besides making you feel good. And regarding plastic, you can’t really recycle an assortment of plastics unless you start sorting the plastics by kind. Most (not all) softer plastics can easily be converted to diesel fuel, other (hard) plastics can be converted into new products or used as filler, but you still need to sort it which is pretty much impossible to do at any scale as there are hundreds if not more types of plastics and combinations of plastics, because each has it’s own properties. So it ends up on the burn pile instead, like they recently (this year) exposed in Germany, Netherlands and Canada. But it makes you feel good. Feels like you are doing something. And the clothing you put in the donation containers? Yeah they check for brand name clothing that’s still good enough to resell second hand, the rest is cut into pieces and shipped around the world, put in cardboard boxes and sold as rags. I’m in the Netherlands and all our rags are from the US (San Francisco area to be precise). Tons of Harvard shirts and shirts from businesses around SF. People donated it and it’s now on the other side of the planet just so that I can use it to clean up sticker residue and other dirty jobs.
Not to mention that grinding up the plastic to recycle it creates a storm of microparticles that are probably worse than not having done the recycling in the first place.
i agree but also…how do we justify any of our use of steel then? all of it is quite valuable, and a lot of it is sitting around doing things even less glamorous than “promoting tourism”. in the end, it seems like a waste iff you don’t value the thing it is actually doing.
Even though the scrap value of the ship could be a million dollars- its labor intensive and very expensive to scrap a large ship. That’s why the Navy sold the last two retired aircraft carriers for a penny a piece. Because if they’d of tried to sell them for any significant amount, no company could’ve profited, and the Navy would be stuck with them.
While I agree with the slight toned ambulance chasers and nanny nonsense, there are hundreds of ships that are diving attractions, and the United States won’t be any different. Nobody is going to shut down diving on it or any other wreck, fatalities or not.
This is the best future for the ship that could be hoped for at this point, and it’ll be able to be enjoyed by divers, fish, and the local economy for decades…
what is ironic is that at almost the same time the SSUS was forced to leave Philadelphia, the SHIPS act was introduced in Congress, aimed at restoring American shipyards. Within the bill, they acknowledge that they will have to create new awareness and education and training centers as part of the workforce solution to provide the labor necessary to build the ships.
They call these “centers of excellence.” And all along both coasts of America there are shipyards looking to reignite production and obtained federal money to update their infrastructure.
there is no better candidate for a center of excellence to promote shipbuilding in America than the SS United States. She’s the finest and largest passenger ship this country has ever produced. Her engineering marvels were many. Basically anybody that was anybody in the world traveled on her in her heyday from 1952 into the 60s including movie stars, heads of states, anybody and everybody including people coming to the United States, service men shuttling back-and-forth between the US and Germany, etc.
well her current state represents a huge uphill challenge to restore her, transforming her into a work based vocational training school and interactive museum for Potential master machinists, welders, and electricians in maritime trades is very accomplishable. For the cost of building a grade school, a portion, if not all all of her interior can be rebuilt with conventional building materials with costs averaging between $250 to $350 per square foot. as she would qualify as part of the shipyard infrastructure, she would receive 25 to 35% subsidy from the government on that cost. And her value as a job incubator and tourism center would more than make up for the difference, possibly attracting other funds that could completely cover the cost of this conversion.
as I said, ironic. I can’t see any better use for her than to go back to work in the service of her country as she did. I’d like to see her telling the story of America shipbuilding excellence and maritime accomplishments, while at the same time preparing young people for rewarding, high paying jobs in the shipbuilding industry that this country is now laser focused on bringing back.
She was designed to be fireproof and therefore packed with asbestos. Remediation is going to be a huge job.
On a personal note, I crossed from NY to Le Havre on her in 1957 at the tender age of 6. Even to my young eyes, she was amazing and despite her rust and faded paint she still is the image of grace and speed.
The ship was largely remediated of asbestos (and the entire interior) in the early 1990s in Europe somewhere, then returned to PA where she sat for years, then… You know where we are now.
The SHIPS Act isn’t law, SS US is obsolete in every way, the federalist government has no legal way to take her if her lawful owners choose not to sell … but other than that you come close to a cogent point.
No. She was built at the dawn of the jet age, sailed for a decade and spent the rest of her life shuffled between owners rusting away. Good riddance.
I believe that losing SS United States is a tragedy. It was the most beautiful ship that I ever saw. Now gigantic cruise liners are just awful to see. We lose those beautiful lines and we shall miss it.
Haha! Can you imagine sinking one of those “Empress of the Seas” things as an artificial reef?? I won’t even try for a punchline, the monstrosities themselves are basically it.
What a tired old wreck the SS United States has become. It’s terrible to see something once so proud and beautiful, elegant and opulant, stylish and sleek, a wonder of the world, reduced to a little more than a obsolete and unwanted remnant of the 20th century decaying into a scrap pile of rubble.
I am sure many people in the world desire the SS United States to be returned to it’s once great status it held in days of yore, although we knowm in our hearts the party is over. It’s once influential days are over leaving the SS United States pretty much an unfixable wreck ruined by old age, obsolescence, and a lack of care. A scrap heap nobody else in the world wants anything to do with.
Ideal for a fish home in very deep water, far out to see.
For a moment I had forgotten that this description was written about a ship.
Came here to say this. I was surprised when the article was actually about a ship.
Yep. Just remove “SS” from the above screed and it succinctly sums up the situation.
The situation as things appeared to be heading prior to November 2024. Thankfully, we have now changed course
Yep. Now it’s straight down, no careful planning.
She was the Grand Dahm of the Atlantic during the 1950s, when our United States were a force to be recond with.
Now in 2025, she is being scuttled at a time where the United States influence around the world is fading…
The S. S. UNITED STATES…am I the only person to see the symbolism of what’s happening?
Fading? Huh? Our influence is RETURNING, not fading.
And, “Dahm”?
A coral reef? I have stunned at the loss of coral in the Caribbean from hurricanes and bleaching events (high water temps). What makes them think they can encourage coral to grow as the water is getting hostile to that organism?
As much as I love history, I think this is for the best. I read the wiki page and that thing has been a huge money soak for a long time. It is simply a relic built for a different time and different technologies. After the first 9 years, it basically never turned a profit again. The change to air travel during this time really did it in. Why spend days at sea when you can spend hours in the air and arrive the same day? I suggest anyone interested go read about this ship…one of the most interesting reads I’ve had in a long time. Loved the 4 props and different blade counts to help with vibration and cavitation issues.