SS United States before sinking off Florida coast. ( ton Beach) As it turns out, it takes a lot to sink a 990-foot ocean liner. The SS United States was supposed to start going down at 1 p.m. Central Time on Wednesday, November 11.
Last-minute preparations pushed that to nearly 5 p.m. By 4:45, every valve was open, and the Gulf was pouring in. Then came four more hours of watching a ship refuse to leave.
She finally slipped under at 8:59 P.M., twenty-two nautical miles southwest of Destin, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, tilting hard to her port side. From a nearby boat, I watched the fastest ocean liner ever built make the slowest exit imaginable. On her maiden voyage in 1952, she beat the Queen Mary’s record by about ten hours.
On Veterans Day, the iconic ocean liner needed about four hours just to go under. With this scuttling—a deliberate, controlled sinking—the SS United States becomes the world’s largest artificial reef, surpassing the USS Oriskany, which had held the title since its 2006 sinking. It’s a second life that’s part habitat project and part tourism bet, and it follows years of failed rescue plans and a last-minute court fight.
Here’s how a ship once meant to become a museum ended up on the Gulf floor, what it means for the sea around her, and what divers can expect when they finally get to explore her underwater. Why sink her off the Florida Panhandle? The seafloor off Destin and Fort Walton Beach is mostly sand and shell, and natural reef is scarce.
Okaloosa County’s tourism department laid out a five-year, $12 million plan to make Destin-Fort Walton Beach the dive capital of Florida, with part of the money coming from tourist-development tax revenue. Visit Pensacola and the Coastal Conservation Association’s Florida chapter signed on as partners. Part of that money funds a multiyear marketing campaign to promote the ship as a diving destination.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
