O/T Maritime History SS United States

wesp · **Posted:** Sat Aug 31, 2024 9:23 am

It seems the stage is being set for the final act in the history of the Big U.

Quote:

According to a report on Get the Coast, Florida’s Okaloosa County has signed an agreement to purchase the SS United States.

The 1952-built former ocean liner will be used as part of a plan to create the world’s largest artificial reef off the coast of Destin-Fort Walton Beach.

Click here for the news story from Cruise Industry News

PaulWWoodring · **Posted:** Sat Aug 31, 2024 1:20 pm

Sort of a Viking funeral instead of razor blades.

Dave Lewandoski · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 5:58 pm **Posts:** 1064

sad ending. Big U is the 1361 od the ship world. If the Millions spent on her docking and moving had been used for a permant berth, she would been in better shape. The Curator of the USS New Jersey did a video on her last summer. Her hull is in good condition, and while her machineary is intact,her interior has been gutted.

mmi16 · **Joined:** Thu Oct 24, 2019 11:05 pm **Posts:** 155

Sad ending in sight

wesp · **Posted:** Sat Aug 31, 2024 9:55 pm

Here is a YouTube video from the 2006 reef sinking of the US Navy aircraft carrier Oriskany in the Gulf of Mexico. The soundtrack is overly dramatic. Click here.

Wesley

EJ Berry · **Posted:** Sat Aug 31, 2024 11:57 pm

SS United States was built right after WWII. Her design had help from the USN for stronger hull plates, better fire protection and more powerful engines so she could serve as a troopship when needed. The USN paid the extra cost of the upgrade.

She was never particularly profitable; travellers preferred the British ships. Shw was laid up in 1969 and with the aluminum superstructure still does not look like a floating wreck after over 50 years.

However, over those 50+ years, nobody has found a use for her.

It's time.

Phil Mulligan

BTW Oriskany (CV-34) was the last of the Essex Class carriers, as an improvement on the Yorktown Class. Oriskany was launched after the war had ended. Construction was suspended in 1947 but she was completed to a modified design after the North Koreans attacked in 1950. She was decommissioned in 1976. As an a aside, a friend served on Oriskany and managed to get seasick on a Carrier.

Crescent-Zephyr · **Joined:** Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:15 pm **Posts:** 1641

So the state of Florida is going to sink the United States? (sorry... the joke was right there!)

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Sun Sep 01, 2024 3:43 pm

EJ Berry wrote:

She was never particularly profitable; travellers preferred the British ships.

The obvious parallel is to the British/French SSTs: A ship built for speed rather than comfort, and you paid the price for the speed in both dollars and comfort.

It's a bit ironic that today the ships that were of the era of the TV show The Love Boat, a show that the entire cruise industry should have subsidized Princess Lines for its nine-year duty as a commercial for the cruise industry, are now being rendered obsolete and to the scrap beaches by the gigantic behemoths now being constructed as floating luxury resort cities instead. I know somebody who follows the cruise ship industry, and the general feeling he tells me is that the increasing loss of the smaller, more intimate cruise ships (like the two routinely featured on the TV series, Pacific Princess and Island Princess, both scrapped about ten years ago) is somewhat akin to the loss felt by railroad buffs/historians when smaller local passenger trains and railroads disappeared into giant mega-railroads like the "Super Six" Class Ones and Amtrak. (Of course, the running joke to that series is that they made it look like the ships ran under only seven people, including the bartender and the captain's daughter, and later the photographer!)

wesp · **Posted:** Sun Sep 01, 2024 4:52 pm

Quote:

She was never particularly profitable; travellers preferred the British ships.

According to a maritime historian friend, Big U was known to be a rough ride at speed or in high seas. And her mid-century modern interiors lacked the warmth of the two Queens and the later sophistication of SS France.

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Mon Sep 02, 2024 9:44 am

I had a short talk about the "United States" with a retired ship's officer. I her opinion, reefing the liner was a preferable finish to her over scrapping. The officer's opinion was based on the service life of the hull and mechanical parts themselves, the fact her engines were no longer serviceable, and the lack off profitable use for a 70+ year old Atlantic liner. The officer felt the ship would still be doing a noble service to her country as ocean habitat and recreational diving location, remaining in service for another hundred years.

My opinion, not that it matters: The S.S. "United States" is a monumental piece of marine architecture and essentially the perfect fast ship for another age. I remember Luxury liner row in New York, and I'd love to see her docked along those piers once more as a library, convention center hotel, shopping mall, etc. Fact is, a dead ship is a hole in the water into which you pour money. It's a bit like having your faithful and beloved dog put down when it is slowly dying and in pain. It's time to draw a deep breath and let go.

And I'm so terribly sorry.

PaulWWoodring · **Posted:** Mon Sep 02, 2024 10:25 am

Large scale model prominently displayed in a maritime museum.

tdmidget · **Joined:** Mon Oct 05, 2020 11:38 pm **Posts:** 46

Richard Glueck wrote:

I had a short talk about the "United States" with a retired ship's officer. I her opinion, reefing the liner was a preferable finish to her over scrapping. The officer's opinion was based on the service life of the hull and mechanical parts themselves, the fact her engines were no longer serviceable, and the lack off profitable use for a 70+ year old Atlantic liner. The officer felt the ship would still be doing a noble service to her country as ocean habitat and recreational diving location, remaining in service for another hundred years.

My opinion, not that it matters: The S.S. "United States" is a monumental piece of marine architecture and essentially the perfect fast ship for another age. I remember Luxury liner row in New York, and I'd love to see her docked along those piers once more as a library, convention center hotel, shopping mall, etc. Fact is, a dead ship is a hole in the water into which you pour money. It's a bit like having your faithful and beloved dog put down when it is slowly dying and in pain. It's time to draw a deep breath and let go.

What makes you think that her engines are no longer serviceable? From what i've heard they were inspected and the gearboxes shot with preservative. Certainly if a ship out of service for over 50 years was to be revived one would open the turbines and inspect them. There is not however a whole lot to go wrong with a steam turbine.

And I'm so terribly sorry.

PCook · **Joined:** Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:16 am **Posts:** 2064

SS United States has always reminded me of this famous ship designed by the same firm.

PC

EJ Berry · **Posted:** Mon Sep 02, 2024 10:34 pm

USS Atlanta (CL-51) was the class leader of a group of prewar designed very light cruisers intended to serve with destroyers, carrying the flag officers, staff and commo gear. In practice, destroyer Commodores (a title, not a rank) sailed in one of the DD's.

She was not a ship you wanted in a surface gun battle with battleships and larger cruisers but in 1942 the USN used the ships it had. Atlanta went to the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal against, among other Japanese ships, two battleships with 14" guns and Nikon optics in their rangefinders.

Atlanta was sunk.

An Atlanta had 16 5"/38 guns that could elevate 85 degrees. They were the best Naval antiaircraft guns of the War and an Atlanta had 16 of them. The Atlantas had found a new job.

Phil Mulligan

Richard Glueck · **Posted:** Tue Sep 03, 2024 10:49 am

The engines have not turned under their own power since 1969. These are steam turbine engines which, I am told, require rotation and regular service to prevent corrosion and sagging and other static damage. I am not a propulsion man so I DO NOT KNOW. I have read at the minimum, total engine removal would be called for, replacing them with large marine Diesels. Again, I DO NOT KNOW.

I think the biggest case against running her once again as a passenger ship is her stripped interior. Frankly, I would think a qualified interior architectural firm could replace everything. I DO NOT KNOW.

She's the last of her pure-bred kind. I would think there would be a market for a three day trans-Atlantic ocean voyages in the modern world, but I DO NOT KNOW.

I do hate to see her euthanized. THAT I DO KNOW.

O/T Maritime History SS United States

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