Tugs move liner from Mobile ahead of Wednesday scuttling off Destin
Scuttling and reef access
Final preparations were under way on Tuesday to scuttle the SS United States in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef, concluding a decades-long wrangle over the fate of the transatlantic icon. A fleet of five tugboats had moved the rusting vessel from a quayside in Mobile, Alabama, on Monday for the short journey to a reef site 25 miles off the coast of Destin, Florida, where it was scheduled to be sunk in what The Guardian called a precision operation on Wednesday afternoon.
The 990-foot (300-meter) vessel was to go down by controlled flooding, with no explosives used. The removals would leave it barely recognizable after its two giant funnels and mast were taken off. The Guardian reported that divers could visit the wreck from the weekend at a depth of about 180 feet, at what the outlet said would be the world’s largest artificial reef.
More than half a century ago, when presidents, royalty and celebrities were among its passengers on trips to and from Europe, the SS United States was described as the world’s fastest ocean liner. It still held the blue riband for the fastest transatlantic crossing by a passenger liner, according to The Guardian. The record was set on its July 1952 eastbound journey, which took three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes at an average of almost 36 knots, or 41.4 mph, and has never been surpassed. A Wikipedia photograph shows the SS United States circa 1950.
Ownership and preservation history
The plan to attract divers as the world’s largest artificial reef was not the outcome preservationists had sought for the ship. The now-defunct United States Lines withdrew the vessel from service in 1969 as passenger numbers declined and transatlantic air travel grew. At various times, the liner was proposed as a floating hotel, a museum or a hospitality venue, but none of the proposals raised enough money or momentum to come to fruition.
The vessel remained at docksides in Virginia and Pennsylvania as those plans stalled, a protracted legal fight over its future played out and the liner passed through several owners. Those owners included the SS United States Preservation Society, a nonprofit founded in 1992 to save the ship from being scrapped.
In 2021, port authorities in Philadelphia doubled the daily dockage fees to $1,700, an amount the conservancy said it could not afford. The fast-deteriorating vessel was eventually evicted by court order in 2024 and was destined to be broken up until Florida’s Okaloosa County stepped in to purchase it for $1 million later that year and advanced the reef project that comes to fruition this week.
The ship had already been towed down the Delaware River between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, from Philadelphia, on 19 February 2025; an AP photograph by Matt Rourke shows that trip. Its relocation to Mobile was followed by months of preparation, including the removal of internal fixtures and toxic materials.
Museum and pier plans
Susan Gibbs, the conservancy’s president and co-founder, said the group appreciated that even though the vessel would be out of public view, people could still enjoy visiting the SS United States and hearing about its story. Plans were advanced for a shore-based museum featuring the ship’s funnels and items from the vessel, and for a pier from which diving trips to the reef would depart. “While she will soon rest beneath the waves, her story will live on,” Gibbs said.
“That’s why the museum is such an inspiring and important component of all of this,” Gibbs said. Over the past 20 years, the conservancy has collected an array of artifacts and material from the ship, film, and testimonials from people who sailed on her and worked on board, Gibbs said. “She’s being reefed and will remain intact and will become a vibrant and dynamic marine habitat, so that, combined with the land-based museum and visitor experience, will honor her history in a deeply moving way,” she said.
The Gibbs legacy
Susan Gibbs is the granddaughter of William Francis Gibbs, the liner’s designer. The Guardian described him as one of the most celebrated and prolific maritime architects of the 20th century.
Gibbs said her grandfather would have been touched that so many people worked hard to preserve what he always considered among his finest accomplishments: the record-breaking ocean liner built entirely in the US that he saw as exemplifying the best of American industry and ingenuity.
“He died when I was five, but I came to know him well through the ship, and through the letters and speeches and papers that I have spent a lot of time perusing,” Gibbs said.
“His relationship with the ship was, I would say, a full bore obsession,” she said. “He would joke that he loved the SS United States a thousand times more than my grandmother. He would see the ship off every time she set sail for Europe, and be one of the first to greet her on her return. He had a true love affair with the ship.”