Meet the man who sinks the world's biggest ships for a living
Deep in the belly of the S.S. United States, some seven decks below the first-class lobby once graced by John F. Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor, Captain Tim Mullane stands inside one of the liner's 120 fuel tanks and stares up at a 30-foot wall slathered in oil. Armed with a power washer and outfitted in a white Tyvek suit and rubber boots, the 54-year-old Navy veteran pulls the trigger and blasts away.
Mullane sinks ships for a living and he's prepping the United States, one of the biggest ocean liners ever built, for its soon-to-be home on the sea floor off the coast of Florida's Okaloosa County, where it will transform into the largest artificial reef on the planet. Along with a 30-person crew, Mullane is in the middle of a six-month process clearing all toxic materials from the ship and preparing its interior to be flooded with water, all in the hopes that, on the fateful day, the ship will arrive upright, toxin-free, and in one piece. 'We're the morticians of the ship, taking it to its final resting place,' he says.
Mullane is equal parts ship-sinker and reef maker—a deep-see reef deployer, as the dozen or so working in the U.S. are known. The business of turning old ships into new reefs first took off in the 1980s and 1990s, when many World War II warships were decommissioned and scuttled. In the U.S., the practice has primarily been focused in the waters off the East and Gulf Coasts as counties and states have invested in the subaquatic tourism industry. More artificial reefs mean more divers, which means more economic revenue for beach towns. It's why Okaloosa County paid $1 million to the S.S. United States Conservancy to purchase the ship that sat rusting away for nearly three decades at a Philadelphia dock.
For Mullane, who co-founded his company, Coleen Marine, with his wife Coleen O'Malley in 2014, ships have been an ever-present part of life. After four years in the Navy, he worked in the shipbreaking industry, where he sliced old hulks into shards and sold them for parts before melting what remained. Then, in 2002, the state of Florida approached him with a curious job. State officials were looking for someone to fully strip and clean the U.S.S. Spiegel Grove, a Cold War-era Navy transport ship that had been relegated to the military's mothball fleet on the James River in Virginia. But the Spiegel Grove wasn't being sold for parts—it was slated to become a diving destination off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. Mullane jumped at the opportunity.
'I've always looked for a niche, and the Spiegel Grove opened my eyes,' he says.
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Since then, O'Malley estimates that 75 percent of their business has gone to creating artificial reefs, with the remaining jobs going to sinking ships offshore to protect coastlines and prevent beach erosion. Each job is different, just as each ship is different. But the broad strokes are the same: paint needs to be chipped off the railings, fuel tanks need to be power-washed, portholes must be popped out, and insulation materials removed. It would seemingly be easy, then, for the hundred-plus contracts to blend together—an endless series of tasks and to-dos until the final box is checked and water comes rushing in and it's on to the next job. Yet even as his books have filled, Mullane knows that many of the ships he has sunk have held a special place in the hearts of passengers and crew who rode upon them. 'To lose them, it's pretty depressing,' Mullane says. The SS United States during her speed trials. Photograph courtesy of Charles Anderson, SS United States Conservancy Archives Collection
The S.S. United States is currently docked at a pier in Mobile Bay, Alabama, where Mullane and his team are stripping away hazardous material that could harm sea life. The paint that once gleamed now looks like crocodile scales. More than 300 portholes have been removed, with a couple hundred more to go. Four massive propellers have been detached. And in a couple weeks, a 200-foot crane will be called in to hoist away the two iconic 65-foot funnels. 'There is not a bigger project,' says O'Malley, 'and there will never be a bigger one because they don't build ships like this anymore.'
To become an artificial reef, ships must adhere to local and national regulations in place to protect marine life that will make it their home. Assisting Mullane to ensure the United States meets the requirements is Alex Fogg, a marine biologist hired by Okaloosa County who advises on artificial reefing projects. Fogg and Mullane have check-ins each morning before coffee to lay out what the day's tasks will entail. Once Mullane's team is done popping portholes and blasting away oil residue, Fogg will inspect the ship to certify that the required toxic substances have been removed.
'The S.S. United States is certainly the Everest of a project,' Fogg says, noting that after he's done his pass, the EPA and other regulatory agencies will inspect the ship to ensure it meets state and federal standards. Once that's done, they can schedule the actual sinking, which Mullane hopes will happen in November. To send the United States to her watery grave, Mullane's team will fill all 120 fuel tanks with 1.75 million gallons of water before a tugboat pulls the ship 150 miles to the reefing spot off the Florida coast. Then comes the tricky part. At strategic spots along the external hull, just a few feet above the waterline, the 20 crew members onboard will use high-power blowtorches to sear open dozens of holes. Using firehoses, they'll blast seawater into compartments throughout the ship to flood the ship's bowels.
(Visiting shipwrecks is suddenly a lot easier than you think.)
As coordinated, scheduled, and regulated as Mullane's plan is, there's still a hefty amount of risk involved. If water is pumped in unevenly or if the hull starts taking on water too early, the ship could sink prematurely or roll over with crew aboard. That's what nearly happened in 2002 with the Spiegel Grove. After Mullane's crew was finished stripping and cleaning the ship, a separate volunteer team was brought on by the state of Florida to sink the ship. But before they were ready, the ship capsized and only partially sank, requiring the state to hire a company to come in and finish the job as it bobbed upside down in the Atlantic. To avoid this fate, Fogg and Mullane will work with a team of engineers in the weeks before the sinking and create a model of the ship to understand where the holes need to be cut so that the liner sinks upright.
Provided everything goes according to plan in November, as seawater breaches the holes cut into the hull and floods the ship's belly, Mullane's crew will evacuate by hopping onto a nearby tugboat, with Mullane being the last one to step off. Once the United States starts sinking, he estimates it'll take less than 45 minutes for the ship to make it 180 feet down to the seafloor.
Back inside the fuel tank, Mullane drops the power-washer and climbs the ladder out of the tank. 'You leave with oil in places that you question how it got there,' Mullane says with a gruff laugh. The captain maneuvers his way through a maze of shadowy corridors littered with paint chips, then up a few flights of steps to the sprawling deck. He stares up at its two funnels still cutting into the sky.
'Some days, I sit on part of the ship and just look at her,' Mullane says, 'She is just a beautiful ship.'
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