USS United States

[roadman65]

I keep seeing Social Media flooding with photos first of it passing beneath the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia and now from the beaches of Palm Beach, Florida. 

It was a luxury liner ( cruise ship wasn't used until the seventies)  built in 1952 that broke the speed record for ocean liners in its day, sat in dock for many decades, and now decided to be sunk off the Florida Panhandle to become an ocean reef. 

The ship was fought hard to preserve and rumor has it Trump lost the battle to save her from being turned into an artificial reef.

[1995hoo]

....

It was a luxury liner ( cruise ship wasn't used until the seventies) ....

People in that industry distinguish the two terms by using "ocean liner" to refer to a vessel whose primary purpose was transportation (and possibly shipment of some amount of freight at the same time) and "cruse ship" to refer to a vessel whose primary purpose is the voyage itself (often, but not always, with intermediate stops for tourism at various ports). Of course that's not a perfect distinction because some "ocean liners" designed specifically for transatlantic crossings operate more like "cruise ships" in that the crossing itself is the purpose (Cunard and British Airways, for example, regularly offered packages where you took the Queen Elizabeth 2 across the ocean in one direction and then returned on Concorde). And, of course, there are other sorts of ships that have been used for that sort of transportation from time to time—my wife and her parents immigrated on a former military ship that was repurposed, for example.

[WillWeaverRVA]

It's actually the SS United States, not USS, since it isn't a naval vessel.

Trump actually hasn't been involved in any of the decision-making, there's an organization that quickly came together in the last couple of weeks petitioning him to save the ship via executive order, but it seems unlikely he'll do so. Preserving it is pretty much impossible given its current state.

[SEWIGuy]

I have a friend who has been really into these preservation efforts for about 20 years now. Even he came around to the fact that it just can't be saved. Sink it and let some good come from it.

[roadman65]

It's actually the SS United States, not USS, since it isn't a naval vessel.

Trump actually hasn't been involved in any of the decision-making, there's an organization that quickly came together in the last couple of weeks petitioning him to save the ship via executive order, but it seems unlikely he'll do so. Preserving it is pretty much impossible given its current state.

to

It's actually the SS United States, not USS, since it isn't a naval vessel.

Trump actually hasn't been involved in any of the decision-making, there's an organization that quickly came together in the last couple of weeks petitioning him to save the ship via executive order, but it seems unlikely he'll do so. Preserving it is pretty much impossible given its current state.

What could they do with it anyway?  It was cost millions to repair and the new cruise ships out there now would make competing impossible.  If it were a museum fine, but who will invest in its repairs and upkeep?

[roadman65]

Well as of today it made the 1800 mile voyage to Alabama. So  it's currently moored in Mobile, AL for it's next phase.  It sailed around Florida and has arrived to be prepped for sinking in the Gulf of the Coast of Okaloosa County, FL to become a coral reef.

[WillWeaverRVA]

What could they do with it anyway?  It was cost millions to repair and the new cruise ships out there now would make competing impossible.  If it were a museum fine, but who will invest in its repairs and upkeep?

Yeah, that's just it. So many people want to save this ship (probably simply because it's the SS United States, you can't let something named the United States die because MURICA), but they don't have the financial or other resources to actually do the job, and the work that has been done already (such as stripping asbestos from from the walls) has been extremely time-consuming and expensive because of the ship's size and level of deterioration. It really isn't worth it, and it should have been reefed years ago.

If the ship was going to be restored, it needed to happen soon after it was decommissioned, and that wasn't going to happen. Even the U.S. Navy decided converting it to a hospital ship (they didn't have any at the time) wasn't worth the expense.

[roadman65]

Makes you wonder what is going to happen to these latest cruise ships that are built to outdo each other in size as constantly they each want to own the largest ship in the world.

It makes me think about when the Disney Magic or Disney Wonder becomes old will they become reefs.  Hopefully Disney will invest money in the upkeep of their current fleet so it don't turn out like this as well as Norwegian and Carnival investing money in renovations over time.

[SEWIGuy]

Makes you wonder what is going to happen to these latest cruise ships that are built to outdo each other in size as constantly they each want to own the largest ship in the world.

It makes me think about when the Disney Magic or Disney Wonder becomes old will they become reefs.  Hopefully Disney will invest money in the upkeep of their current fleet so it don't turn out like this as well as Norwegian and Carnival investing money in renovations over time.

They're usually just recylced.