In One Ear: A sad end
That grand old passenger liner, the SS United States, after several legal tussles, U.S. Coast Guard-mandated fixes and being berthed in Philadelphia since 1996, is on its way to Florida.
The ship slowly pulled out with a special escort from five tugs, news helicopters and throngs of people watching, and is heading down the East Coast, according to a SS United States Conservancy press release.
Smithsonian Magazine reported the 1,000-foot ship, designed by William Francis Gibbs and built in 1950 and 1951, is made mostly of aluminum. Because it was so lightweight, the maiden voyage in 1952 from New York to Cornwall, England, broke the record for fastest transatlantic round trip — a record that has never been beaten.
'You can't set her on fire, you can't sink her and you can't catch her,' Gibbs said, according to the S.S. United States Conservancy, which has sold the ship to Okaloosa County, Florida. It was a necessary move. A shadow of its former glory after hosting four presidents, it had been evicted from its berth in Philadelphia.
Restoring it was cost-prohibitive — it had been stripped long ago, and is essentially an empty hulk. There were only two choices: sell the ship or scrap it. Scrapping was unthinkable.
After a long, slow trip down the coast, the 'unsinkable' ship will be sunk to become the world's largest artificial reef.
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