The SS United States — a huge ocean liner that once ferried celebrities — is slated to be sunk to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico next week, to become the world’s largest artificial reef.
It will be an auspicious end for the 990-foot ship, which smashed the transatlantic speed record for an ocean liner on its 1952 maiden voyage but spent more recent decades bouncing from owner to owner, struggling to find a new purpose and avoid the scrap heap.
The plan is to set it down 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin, Florida, on Nov. 12, according to officials in Okaloosa County.
The ship will be joining the hundreds of other artificial reefs in the northern waters of the Gulf, including former ships and concrete structures, said county spokesman Nick Tomecek.
It’s good for aquatic life and helps replace lost natural habit, he said, along with attracting divers. The county hopes to generate tourism and diving revenue from the ship turned reef.
The SS United States carried more than a million passengers over its career, including Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney, according to records. The 1962 comedy film “Bon Voyage!” used the ship as a major setting.
The ship was retired in 1969, amid the expansion of jet travel and the fall of transatlantic passenger traffic.
It spent several years laid up in Newport News and Norfolk, Virginia. Potential owners eyed it as a floating casino or hospital ship. A group bought it for $7 million in 1980 with plans to convert it into floating condos. All plans fell through.
A new owner took the ship to Turkey for several years, but it returned to the United States with a different owner in the 1990s. More owners followed as the ship sat docked in Philadelphia.
Then a group created to save the ship, the SS United States Conservancy, bought it in 2011. There was talk of anchoring the ship as part of a waterfront development in a major city. Nothing worked out.
By 2014, the conservancy was considering scrapping the grand old ship as it struggled to afford upkeep and mooring fees.
A decade later, after a court battle, the ship was evicted from its port.
That’s when Okaloosa County — home of Destin and Fort Walton Beach — came calling.
The county bought the ship for $1 million and, along with partners, spent nearly $13 million to tow it and get it ready to become a reef, along with helping fund a new ship-related museum.
The current titleholder of largest artificial reef is the USS Oriskany, a former aircraft carrier sunk in 2006 off the coast of Pensacola, Florida.
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