S.S. United States to Become a Reef – Goodbye Big U

America’s Greatest Liner Finds a New Purpose

In 2024, Okaloosa County, Florida, bought the S.S. United States. Early in 2025, she left Philadelphia. Since then, they’ve cleaned, stripped, and prepared her for one last job. Sometime in mid-November, weather permitting, they’ll sink her in the Gulf of Mexico about 22 nautical miles off Destin–Fort Walton Beach to become the world’s largest artificial reef.

Well, they’re not scrapping her, at least. She sat at a pier in Philadelphia for decades, her paint rotting and her funnels fading. A small group, led by designer William Francis Gibbs’ granddaughter, Susan L. Gibbs, raised funding, made plans, and refused to let her go.

Renovation ideas floated for the Big U included a hotel, museum, office complex, or mixed-use waterfront landmark. Every idea had champions, and every idea hit the same wall: she was enormous and expensive, and time was not on her side.

Image source: PTS Aerial Services via Shutterstock

Why This Is Personal to Me

I was one of those people promoting her revival, at least in intent. For my MBA, I wrote a business plan to refit her as a permanently docked hotel ship, like the Queen Mary in Long Beach, at Pier 94 on Manhattan’s West Side. The financials worked on paper. I got an A. She stayed in Philadelphia.

In 2012, I wrote about being one of the last passengers of the S.S. United States. In November 1969, I was five years old, sailing home from Southampton with my parents and our 1963 Rambler stowed somewhere below. I was only vaguely aware it was her final voyage.

I remember my mother hoping we’d sail home on the Queen Elizabeth, and her disappointment when she learned that ship was already gone. I didn’t understand the significance of this crossing, or that it was the final chapter of the ocean liner era. I didn’t really care much. I was too busy being seasick.

My parents are long gone. I didn’t appreciate the ticket leaflets and brochures until long after those were gone too. What’s left is what was always going to be left: memories, photographs, and the people who cared enough to keep her story alive. If you were one of them, thank you. You gave her more years than anyone expected.

The World’s Largest Artificial Reef

My first reaction wasn’t gratitude or relief. This was the fastest ocean liner ever built. She took the Blue Riband on her maiden voyage in 1952 and never gave it back. A reef felt like a sad end for a ship like that.

However, the alternative was truly grim: being sent to the scrapyard for wholesale recycling. Under Okaloosa County’s ownership, the S.S. United States stays whole, or close to it, resting upright on the seabed. Divers will swim along her decks. Fish will take up residence. Corals, sponges, and other marine life will take hold and retain the form of her rusting hulk.

Image source: Captured_Exploration via Shutterstock

In Memory of Bygone Experiences

When I think about that voyage, I don’t recall the things a grown-up would remember. I remember the hull looking like a black wall with round windows. And a clown making balloon animals at a children’s party in the Cabin Class Lounge. The decor and furnishings were a warm shade of red.

If you’d asked me then, that was easily the best part of the trip. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and Statue of Liberty, glimpsed before dawn on the fifth day, didn’t stand a chance.

Somewhere down there will be a porthole where a seasick kid once looked out at a wall of deep green water and was terrified. In 2012, I hoped they could save her. In a way, they have, not as a hotel or a museum, but as a reef that will be around for a very long time.

Fair winds, Big U. Rest easy.