An ocean liner once known as the fastest in the world has made its final journey, although it appears nobody told it there was a hurry about saying its goodbyes.
The SS United States, which once carried presidents and Hollywood royalty across the Atlantic Ocean at record-breaking speeds, took hours to sink after crews deliberately sent it to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico yesterday.
Organisers had hoped that the enormous vessel might well disappear beneath the waves in as little as an hour. Instead, much of it remained visible well into the evening, finally tipping onto its side and vanishing beneath the water at around 9pm.
‘She is an amazing lady who will not lay down without a fight,’ said Coleen O’Malley, president of Coleen Marine, the company responsible for sinking it. ‘Much like the amazing nation she was named after.’
The 990ft ship, which was 108ft longer than the Titanic, was being sunk as part of a $13.5million project to create what organisers say will be the world’s largest artificial reef.
Its new home is around 25 miles off the coast of Destin, Florida, where it will provide a habitat for marine life and a new attraction for divers.
It’s quite a change of clientele for a ship that once counted the likes of Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor among its many passengers.
Actually sinking the thing proved rather more complicated than expected.
Crews had to fill 128 fuel and lubricant tanks with water to help the vessel settle evenly on the seabed, a process that took considerably longer than anyone had really planned for.
Okaloosa County spokesperson Nick Tomecek admitted it ‘took longer than we thought’. ‘She’s a big ship,’ he added.
Explosives were ruled out because of federal regulations, so workers prepared the liner to flood through its existing seawater pipes. They also cut huge openings in the decks and removed more than 400 portholes, having already spent months preparing the ageing vessel for its final voyage.
The sinking itself had been brought forward by a day because of concerns about bad weather. The ship was intended to settle in around 180ft of water, with its upper decks approximately 60ft beneath the surface.
That should make parts of the wreck accessible to recreational divers, while providing a home for fish and other marine creatures. The ship that once served caviar and smoked salmon to the rich and famous could soon be attracting live tuna, marlin and swordfish instead.
And it has certainly had a more glamorous existence than your average artificial reef.
Built in Virginia by more than 3,000 workers between 1950 and 1951, the SS United States was considered an engineering marvel at the time. And still is to many in the trade.
On its maiden voyage way back in 1952, it averaged almost 41mph, beating the transatlantic speed record held by Britain’s RMS Queen Mary by a cool 4.5mph. It managed this despite encountering an oncoming gale with winds reaching up to 69mph.
The weather was so ferocious that, according to an Associated Press report at the time, a ping pong table was blown clean off the deck. Presumably the game was abandoned.
Over the following 17 years, the liner made more than 800 Atlantic crossings, carrying an impressive collection of famous passengers.
Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John F Kennedy all travelled aboard, as did Britain’s former King Edward VIII. A young Bill Clinton was another passenger, sailing to Britain in 1968 to begin his studies over at Oxford University.
Life aboard was suitably extravagant, with menus featuring fancy feasts including the likes of caviar, smoked ox tongue and Calf’s Head en Tortue. Affluent passengers could also enjoy a meal of roast duckling, presumably without having to worry too much about the bill.
But the rise of commercial air travel eventually caught up with the liner, which was taken out of service in 1969. Attempts to give the thing a second lease of life came to nothing and from 1996 until recently it sat docked in Philadelphia, its glory days becoming an increasingly distant memory.
Rather than send it to the scrapyard, officials in Florida decided it could be put to better use underwater. It’ll join more than 500 artificial reefs in the surrounding waters, including the former aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, which was deliberately sunk off Pensacola in 2006.
Not everything has gone to the bottom, however. The ship’s enormous 65ft funnels have been saved for a planned museum celebrating its history, something welcomed by Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of the liner’s designer.
‘I’m just so happy that we are able to save parts of her,’ she said.
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