October, 2024
For 28 years, different owners did not know what to do with a rusty iconic passenger ship moored in the port of the US city of Philadelphia. A judge forced the current owner to make a choice: the ship will become the largest artificial coral reef in the world.
The SS United States was designed after World War II as a modern means of transport between the United States and Europe. In the early 1950s, the ‘flagship of the US’ made its maiden voyage across the Atlantic.
Many US celebrities and four presidents travelled on the ship between the US and Europe. The ship even broke the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic.
Later, ocean liners such as the United States were surpassed by aviation, which made the ocean journey faster. In 1969, the ship made its last voyage.
Since then, the ship has changed owners several times, sometimes with ambitious restoration plans that were never carried out. In 1996, the ship ended up in the port of Philadelphia.
The landlord of the berth had been trying to get the ship to leave for some time. The rent was doubled in 2021 and a court case was launched in 2022. In the meantime, the foundation that had bought the ship in 2011 tried to accommodate the ship elsewhere. It did not succeed.
Last summer, a US federal court ordered that the ship had to go. The owner was left with a limited choice: either sell the ship as scrap metal, or sink it to serve as a coral reef. It happens more often that old ships are given a final resting place this way.
The ship's owner has reportedly chosen the latter option. The ship will soon be moved to Norfolk ports, where dangerous parts of the ship will be removed. This will take about a year. After that, the ship will go to the coast of the US state of Florida and be sunk.
