The SS United States is bigger than the Titanic. It has held the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in either direction since its maiden voyage in 1952. It was the flagship of United States Lines until the company folded in 1969, after years of flagging passenger numbers due to the competition from tranatlantic flights.
Numerous companies and individuals tried and failed to repurpose the ship in the intervening decades, with much of the ship's interior being stipped and sold. The SS United States Conservancy purchased the ship in 2011, planning to preserve the vessel and turn it into a "stationary, mixed-use destination in a major port."
The ship was evicted from the Philadelphia pier where she has sat since 1996 after a rent dispute and finally sold to Okaloosa County, Florida when the Conservancy failed to find another suitable berth. After years of uncertainly, the ocean liner is in the process of being towed from Philadelphia to Mobile, Alabama.
Photos taken by the tugboat captain are appropriately somber and eerie.
Thanks to Captain Mike Vinik for taking these photos of the SS United States off the coast of North Carolina. She's currently being towed through a following sea at about 6 knots, through the remants of a winter storm.
— Democracy Skies in Blueness – Resist (@democracyblue.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 6:16 PM
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In Mobile, the last remaining scrap and hazardous materials will be stripped from the ship and it will be towed to its final resting place in the water of of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, where it will be scuttled. Then the historic ship will hold another record, the largest artificial reef in the world.
Previously: America's flagship headed for the scrapyard?
