Thoughts on the SS United States getting sunk

It would be better than scrapping her. They've been trying to save her for like what now?...20 years or so with no big money stepping up. I doubt it will ever happen now. So make a reef out of her...better than making more razor blades. Every time one of these stories comes out she looks worse than before.
 
Steven Christian said:
It would be better than scrapping her. They've been trying to save her for like what now?...20 years or so with no big money stepping up. I doubt it will ever happen now. So make a reef out of her...better than making more razor blades. Every time one of these stories comes out she looks worse than before.
Click to expand...
A challenge of them making the ship a reef is that their going to have to remove the engines and seal off a few areas, I hate to say this but I can't wait for the sinking videos to surface!
 
I wonder where they are going to do the cleanup? The Oriskany was done over in Texas. She was docked over in Pensacola a couple of different times, so I got to see her fairly close up. I suspect the US will have at least some stopover there. I can fake like I am selfish, since I live and work very near where the US is supposed to be sunk. Still, I don't dive, and I admit that I was hoping there was a crazy rich man who wanted a VERY large yacht and wanted to fix her up like new.
 
Here's the latest from the owners. They need $500,000 PDQ!
www.ssusc.org

Save the United States — SS United States Conservancy

An irreplaceable piece of American history and symbol of the nation could soon be homeless and face destruction. The ship’s owner and caretaker, the national nonprofit SS United States Conservancy has launched an urgent effort to raise $500,000 to help cover the costs of the ship’s potential relocat
www.ssusc.org www.ssusc.org

Personally, I'd like to have the price of the paint needed to make her look presentable. She's quite a mess!
 
It saddens me to my very core to see such an iconic and classic vessel to likely get sunk, however I second the view it's better than letting her be broken up and melted.

I hope she'll be freshened up to her old livery and that we'll get a ton of angles of her sinking (for research purposes), as we never have seen the sinking of a passenger liner this size (unless you want to count the SS Île de France that is) sink on camera.
 
Given the choice I'd rather see her sunk than scrapped. But it's a sad fate. Nearly all the ocean liners are gone and its shame that she wasn't restored and put back in service in some form.
 
Thomas Krom said:
It saddens me to my very core to see such an iconic and classic vessel to likely get sunk, however I second the view it's better than letting her be broken up and melted.

I hope she'll be freshened up to her old livery and that we'll get a ton of angles of her sinking (for research purposes), as we never have seen the sinking of a passenger liner this size (unless you want to count the SS Île de France that is) sink on camera.
Click to expand...
Hopefully, like the Oriskany, she ends up on the bottom upright. Hopefully, unlike the Oriskany, she doesn't end up quite so deep. I wonder if there are paints that are environmentally safe for the ship when she sinks...
 
Wayne (Notso) Keen said:
Hopefully, like the Oriskany, she ends up on the bottom upright. Hopefully, unlike the Oriskany, she doesn't end up quite so deep. I wonder if there are paints that are environmentally safe for the ship when she sinks...
Click to expand...
Given when she was built and operated I'm sure she is covered in red lead and grey lead paint. I doubt they would repaint her just to sink her. If they did do a lead abatement program on her they would probably just sand blast her and sink her. Like Dave Gittins pointed out the cost to paint her again would be a lot. Probably in the millions today. Yes it would be good if they could sink her shallower than the "Mighty O". There have been accidents with sport divers on the Oriskany. Much of the ship is below the limits for average scuba diving.
 
Last edited:
That $9,000,000 is going to have to cover all of the costs including any remediation that has to be done, otherwise reefing the ship is a no-go. I expect there are going to be some unwelcome surprises lurking in that old hull that'll call for some addiitional funding to take care of.

The upside of all of this is that the ship is a gutted shell. It's literally as empty as the inside of a politician's cranium. The asbestos was removed in Ukraine at the Sevastopol Shipyard back in 1992, but that still leaves open the question of any other hazardous materials which may be aboard.
 
Michael H. Standart said:
That $9,000,000 is going to have to cover all of the costs including any remediation that has to be done, otherwise reefing the ship is a no-go. I expect there are going to be some unwelcome surprises lurking in that old hull that'll call for some addiitional funding to take care of.

The upside of all of this is that the ship is a gutted shell. It's literally as empty as the inside of a politician's cranium. The asbestos was removed in Ukraine at the Sevastopol Shipyard back in 1992, but that still leaves open the question of any other hazardous materials which may be aboard.
Click to expand...
That is what happened to my ship when they scrapped her. They kept finding more and problems as they took her apart and even halted it for awhile because of all the toxic things they kept finding. It turned into a huge mess and became very expensive. I read at the time the most expensive scrapping job ever. Supposed to be a 2 year job that turned into 7 from what I read. Of course it might not equate with different type ships but like you said no telling what they might find.
warsearcher.com

Scrapping the Supercarrier

Scrapping the largest warships in the World is a monumental undertaking. With the exception of ex-USS America, CV-66, which was sunk in deep water in 2005 to test carrier vulnerability to modern we…
warsearcher.com warsearcher.com
 

Similar threads

T
SS United States: What's the latest news?
30 31
Replies
463
Views
36K
TOWER3
T
C
Books on SS United States
Replies
6
Views
4K
Michael H. Standart
M
Ryan Thompson
SS United States Philadelphia Harbor
4 5
Replies
62
Views
8K
sashiplover
sashiplover
P
The SS United States has a serious marketing problem.
Replies
3
Views
2K
Michael H. Standart
M
D
SS United States Lounge
Replies
3
Views
3K
sashiplover
sashiplover
Back
Top