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The SS United States Is Set to Sink Off Destin Today
Okaloosa County moved the sinking up a day for weather. The 990-foot liner will rest in about 180 feet of water, its top deck about 60 feet down.
The SS United States, the ocean liner that set the trans-Atlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, is scheduled to be sunk Wednesday, November 11, in the Gulf about 25 miles southwest of Destin, Florida, to become the world's largest artificial reef, the Associated Press reports. Okaloosa County's $13.5 million project is meant to draw divers and anglers and to create habitat for tuna, marlin and swordfish.
County spokesperson Nick Tomecek said concerns about weather led officials to move the sinking up a day. Federal environmental and explosives rules bar the use of explosives, so the county's contractor will open valves to flood the hull. Workers have removed the ship's cooling tanks and more than 400 portholes and cut 10-by-10-foot holes in the decks.
The 990-foot ship is to settle in about 180 feet of water with its top deck about 60 feet below the surface, shallow enough for less experienced divers. About 500 artificial reefs already lie in the area, Tomecek said, and the previous largest, the 911-foot aircraft carrier USS Oriskany sunk in 2006 off Pensacola, is close enough that an experienced diver could visit both in a day.
The ship's 65-foot smokestacks were removed before the sinking and are to anchor a new museum about the liner. It was decommissioned in 1969 and sat at a dock in Philadelphia from 1996 until recently.
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