SS US to become artificial reef: NPR

In the coming days, the United States is expected to make its final journey, on its way to bury it at sea.

It is not the country that is coming to an end, but the ship that bears its name. SS United States is a mid-20th century ocean liner that held the speed record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Now tied to a dock in Philadelphia, its paint peeling and fading after decades of inactivity, it is bound to end, and is in effect a new phase of its life: an artificial reef that attracts divers and marine life to the waters. Off Florida.

It's a complicated job to tow a 990-foot ship that no longer has its own working engines. The ship's scheduled departure from Philadelphia last week was delayed due to weather, and a new date has not been set. But the United States must go. The dock operator wants to reclaim its dock space, and its sale has been finalized.

Before departing, an NPR team boarded what is actually a ghost ship — a relic of the age of great ships that connected North America with Europe. The most famous of these ships are those that sank, such as the Andrea Doria, Lusitania, and Titanic. The builders of America have learned from the mistakes of others, and will not collapse until they are destroyed by design.

“If this ship had hit the iceberg of the Titanic, it would not have sunk,” said Susan Gibbs, whose grandfather designed the United States and who fought for two decades to preserve it. She recounted the ship's history while standing on the bow one sunny afternoon.

“It was a top-secret Cold War weapon,” she said. “Her keel was positioned correctly when the Soviet Union tested the atomic bomb.”

The US Navy paid most of the bills because the passenger ship had a military purpose. It could easily be converted to transport thousands of American troops to a war zone, a function served by the British ships Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth during World War II.

Gibbs' grandfather, William Francis Gibbs, was a native of Philadelphia who was fascinated with ships as a child and grew up designing them even though he had no formal training. His accomplishment during World War II was the construction of the so-called Liberty Ships, cargo ships that carried food and weapons to Europe; They had to be designed and built so that they could be completed by the thousands, more quickly than German submarines could sink them.

After the war, Gibbs convinced the government to help him achieve his dream: the fastest, safest ship on deck. Its advanced engines and propellers allowed it to cruise at 44 land miles per hour, so fast that many warships and submarines of the era had difficulty keeping up with it. (The Queen Mary's top speed was about 37, and most ships were much slower.)

Waterproof compartments made the ship extremely difficult to sink. Gibbs obsessively removed the flammable wood that would normally make up much of the ship's interior decoration. He insisted on lightweight aluminum, and even tried to persuade piano maker Theodore Steinway to produce an aluminum grand piano.

“Steinway thought it might affect the tone quality of the instrument, so he refused,” Gibbs said. He finally convinced the shipbuilding company to accept a mahogany piano by dousing the instrument in gasoline and setting it on fire; The fuel burns hardwood without affecting it.

The ship never served in wartime, instead spending the years from 1952 to 1969 in passenger service for US Lines. Musicians including Duke Ellington played mahogany piano in the ballroom. Among the passengers were a number of presidents. Margaret Truman, the president's daughter, came on the record-breaking maiden voyage.

The ship ceased operations in 1969 as he took over air travel. In recent years, Susan Gibbs tried to repurpose it into a floating hotel, which never worked.

Finally, Okaloosa County, Florida, has proposed turning it into the world's largest artificial reef.

“I shed some tears.” Susan Gibbs told me. But she added: “This is her next chapter and I'm coming to terms with it. I think it will provide a special sense of dignity and make me even more determined to continue telling her story.”

I noticed that she referred to the ship as “she,” which is the traditional way ships are discussed. Did the United States have a personality in mind?

“Yes,” Gibbs said. “I see this ship as a feminist icon. It's strong. It's strong, it's resilient, it takes on a lot.”

Assuming the ship is successfully towed to Florida's Gulf Coast, the faded hull will be turned over to engineers, who plan to use explosives to blow holes in the bottom and conduct a controlled sinking in water shallow enough to be explored by divers.

Before it sinks, the faded red, white and blue funnels must be removed and brought into the ground. They are intended to serve as centerpieces for a maritime museum, relics of an earlier phase of global travel.

The audio version of this piece was edited by H.G. May and produced by Katie Klein and Julie Diepenbrock. The digital version was edited by Majd Al-Wahidi.