Tugboat crew successfully navigates the SS United States through rough weather

Yahoo

25-02-2025

OKALOOSA COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – The SS United States, left the port of Philadelphia behind a tugboat last Wednesday for the first time in almost 30 years. Okaloosa County bought the ocean liner last year for $10 million with plans to sink it for an artificial reef.
The tug and ship are 5 days into the journey to Mobile, Alabama, where it will be cleaned and prepped for sinking off the coast of Destin. In its day, the SS United States set the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing, during its maiden voyage. Captain Mike Vinik, owner of 'Vinik no. 6', the tugboat that's towing the SS United States.
Vinik says The SS United States should be crossing into Florida water sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday morning.
Vinik says his goal is to get the ship to its final destination safely and as efficiently as possible.
'Having never towed this particular ship before, we estimated that we'd make between five and six knots and we've been doing between six and seven, sometimes eight almost the whole time. Aside from the weather delay that we had when we when we first left,' said Vinik.
That's an increase from around 6 miles an hour to approximately 9 miles an hour. On their second day, the crew encountered some rough weather off the coast of Virginia Beach.
45-mile-an-hour winds and waves as high as 14 feet caused the 990-foot-long luxury liner to turn sideways.
'The ship's design is similar to an umbrella or a parachute. When the wind gets stronger, it's going to want to go beam to the sea, or perpendicular to the weather. So we had a north wind, so the ship was trying to go the east-west direction. We just slowed down, waited for the weather to pass, and continued going again,' explained Vinik.
Vinik says they anticipated the rough weather and implemented the proper techniques.
'We hove-to, which is a safe way of not making a tremendous amount of progress over ground. But just waiting for the weather to calm down,' said Vinik.
Vinik says the ship can handle extreme weather and the crew knew the wind would be on their stern.
'We expected it would probably try and either tack or go beam to the sea or beam to the wind. So everything was kind of planned and we're not going to be able to make 1800 or 2000 miles without experiencing weather,' added Vinik.
For Vinik, the more breathtaking experience occurred after returning the ship to its upright position.
'Once we got to the Gulf Stream, we had a really cool phenomenon where we got to see some extraordinary sea smoke. We don't see it very often, where the air temperature was very cold in the thirties and forties and the sea temperature was 80/85.'
Getting the vessel to Mobile brings this project one 1800-mile step closer to its goal of being the world's largest artificial reef.
'Once in mobile at the shipyard is where the work will begin. Basically, it's going to include to remove any of the remaining asbestos. It'll be to remove the exfoliating paint on the hull. It'll be to look, find any PCBs, any loose wiring, and wiring in the overheads will probably be removed,' said Captain Joseph Farrell, a ship-sinking and artificial reef expert.
Capt. Farrell handled the sinking of the USS Oriskany aircraft carrier, which is currently the largest artificial reef in the world.
He estimated the SS United States trip to Mobile would take about 18 days. But Vinik says if they can maintain their current speed, they might make it sometime March 5th, totaling the trip to 14 days.
Vinik says his biggest concern right now is the Gulf Stream current slowing him down. He wants to minimize the effects by going around it, about 50 miles offshore.
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