The SS United States, once the fastest ocean liner in the world and longer than the Titanic, was deliberately sunk off the Florida coast this week, completing its transformation from a decaying maritime icon into what will become the world's largest artificial reef.
Crews towed the 990-foot vessel from a berth in Mobile, Alabama, on Monday to a site roughly 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin and 32 nautical miles southeast of Pensacola, where it was sunk Wednesday in what officials described as a precision operation carried out without explosives. The ship will sit near the USS Oriskany, an aircraft carrier sunk in 2006 that until now held the title of the region's largest artificial reef.
From Atlantic speed record to the Gulf floor
Launched into service in 1952, the SS United States still holds the Blue Riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing by a passenger ship, a record it has kept for more than seven decades. Over 17 years of sailing before its retirement in 1969, it carried three sitting or future U.S. presidents — Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy, along with a young Bill Clinton — as well as celebrities including Marlon Brando, Coco Chanel, Duke Ellington, Salvador Dali, Walt Disney, Judy Garland and Cary Grant.
After decades docked first in Philadelphia and then, following a legal battle, in Mobile for cleaning and asbestos remediation, the ship was purchased by Okaloosa County, Florida, after proposals to preserve it as a museum or floating hotel repeatedly collapsed. The SS United States Conservancy, the nonprofit that spent years fighting to keep the liner afloat as a museum, lost that fight but said it was relieved the ship's story would continue in another form. "It has always been this unabashedly American symbol that brings so many people together," said Susan Gibbs, the Conservancy's president, whose grandfather helped design the liner, in remarks reported by CBS News.
Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Louisiana State University will monitor the wreck's biological, physical and chemical conditions as marine life colonizes it in the coming years. A land-based museum detailing the ship's history is also planned for the Florida coast, giving the vessel a second life as both a dive destination and a memorial to its record-setting past.
