SS United States, World's Fastest Ocean Liner, Sunk as Record Reef

By Elena Vasquez

The SS United States crossed the Atlantic in under four days. On Wednesday it sank in five hours off the Florida coast. The 1951 ocean liner, longer than the RMS Titanic, is now expected to form the world's largest artificial reef near Destin in Okaloosa County.

Crews removed plugs in the hull and let water flood the ship without explosives. After hours of delays, the liner tilted onto its side and slipped below the waves. Its final voyage, after decades moored and rusting in Philadelphia, ended just over 20 nautical miles from Destin's beaches.

The ship once carried four US presidents, the Mona Lisa and a roster of 20th-century movie stars. Facing the scrap heap, its custodians sold it to Okaloosa County for $1 million in 2024 — a fraction of its original cost. The county invested another $10 million in the reefing project, stripping toxic materials and bulky components from the hull.

Why sink a liner?

The bet is economic. Okaloosa County has sunk hundreds of artificial reefs, many of them ships, and reefs currently generate roughly $10 million to $12 million in annual economic benefits, county tourism director Jennifer Adams said.

"Certainly this is the biggest that we've done," Adams told NPR. She expects the new figure to climb, and projects the county will recoup its $10 million investment in "a couple of years."

The numbers behind the strategy are large. Florida has created more than 4,000 artificial reefs since 1940, according to a state fish and wildlife commission tally. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analysis of 2017 diving-tourism data calculated that visits to just a few reefs generated nearly $1 billion in annual economic benefits.

The SS United States joins the USS Oriskany, an 888-foot aircraft carrier the US Navy sank off Pensacola in 2006. Together they give the Florida panhandle the first and second largest artificial reefs on the planet — roughly one record ship per major coastal county.

Divers are already booking. Karen Flynn, a wreck diver with the Maryland-based Atlantic Wreck Divers, reserved tickets and a charter boat within days of the announced "deployment" date.

"We've dove everything that you can around the world," Flynn told NPR. "This will just be one more unique, new thing for us to dive."

"It should rest at a place where its upper decks … are not outside of the recreational diving limits," she added.

What are the risks?

Economist Andrew Ropicki of the University of Florida says the region has reached a "critical mass" of planned shipwrecks. "You can capture more of those tourism dollars than [other areas]," he said. But he warned that overinvestment could bring diminishing returns as visitor interests shift or divers feel overwhelmed by choice.

Adams told NPR that plans are already underway to sink "five or six" more artificial reefs after the SS United States.

A 'dignified solution'

For Susan Gibbs, head of the SS United States Conservancy, the sinking stirred mixed feelings. "I'm full of a complex mix of sorrow but gratitude and pride and hope," she said before the ship went down.

Her grandfather, William Francis Gibbs, designed the liner and worked on it obsessively. "He would freely admit that he loved this ship a thousand times more than my grandmother," she said.

Still, the conservancy chose the seabed over the scrapyard. "We felt that reefing was by far the more dignified solution," Gibbs said.

Flynn agrees. "There's something about looking out over that bridge … and seeing the nose of the bow and then seeing just the blue out in front of it," she said. "That is going to be a spectacular shot."