The historic ocean liner SS United States, once the fastest ship on the seas, made a slow final journey beneath the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, November 11, and came to rest on the seabed off Florida as what officials say is the world's largest artificial reef.

Source: Associated Press via Military.com

The 990-foot (302-metre) liner — 108 feet longer than the Titanic and a ship that crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times — was deliberately sunk about 25 miles (40 kilometres) south-west of Destin, between Panama City and Pensacola, in about 180 feet (55 metres) of water. Its top deck is expected to sit about 60 feet (18 metres) below the surface, shallow enough for inexperienced divers to visit. The site's coordinates, published by Okaloosa County, are 30° 07.148′ N, 86° 46.755′ W.

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A slow goodbye that took hours

Crews began the controlled flooding on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon, and organisers had predicted the ship could go down in as quickly as an hour. Instead, much of the hulking vessel could still be seen in the dark waters off the Florida Panhandle by nightfall. Finally, around 9 p.m., the vessel leaned on one side and then quickly submerged, the Associated Press reported.

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"She is an amazing lady who will not lay down without a fight," Coleen O'Malley, president of Coleen Marine, the company sinking the ship, said before the vessel disappeared. "Much like the amazing nation she was named after."

Source: Associated Press via Military.com

The slow descent was partly because crews had to fill 128 fuel and lubricant tanks aboard the ship with water so that it would rest evenly on the ocean floor, said Nick Tomecek, a spokesperson for Okaloosa County, which organised the sinking with the contractor. "It took longer than we thought," Tomecek said. "She's a big ship."

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Sunk without explosives

Federal environmental and explosives rules prevent the county and its contractor from using explosives to scuttle the ship, Tomecek said. Instead, workers cut 10-foot by 10-foot holes in the decks, removed more than 400 portholes, and opened valves so seawater could flood the hull through the pipes that once cooled its boilers. The sinking had been scheduled for Thursday, November 12, but officials moved it forward by a day because of forecast heavy winds, cancelling a planned public send-off ceremony.

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Okaloosa County bought the liner for $1 million in 2024 from the SS United States Conservancy, which could no longer afford to keep her afloat. The SS United States Preservation Foundation went to federal court to stop the sinking, but a federal judge in Florida denied its emergency bid on November 6, 2026. The ship's 65-foot smokestacks were removed before the sinking and are planned as the centrepiece of a new museum celebrating the vessel, which the Conservancy is developing in Okaloosa County.

Source: DeeperBlue

A record-setting liner

More than 3,000 workers helped build the SS United States in Virginia in 1950 and 1951, and the ship made its maiden voyage in 1952. On that first crossing its average speed was almost 41 mph (66 kph), beating a record set by Britain's RMS Queen Mary in 1938 by 4.5 mph, even though the journey ended in a full gale that reached 69 mph. Famous passengers included Hollywood stars Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor, Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, and Britain's former King Edward VIII. In 1968, a young Bill Clinton took the ship when he went to Oxford University.

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The ship was decommissioned in 1969. Attempts by a hotel magnate and Norwegian Cruise Lines to use it never floated, and from 1996 until recently it sat along a dock in Philadelphia. The reefing project keeps what was a technological marvel of its day from becoming scrap metal.

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The world's largest artificial reef — and what happens next

At 990 feet, the SS United States takes the title of the world's largest deliberately deployed artificial reef from the 911-foot aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, scuttled off Pensacola in 2006 — close enough that an experienced diver could visit both wrecks in the same day, Tomecek said. More than 500 artificial reef sites already sit in the waters near the new wreck. The project is aimed at attracting divers and fishing enthusiasts while creating a home for tuna, marlin and swordfish.

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Whether the ship has come to rest upright, as intended, had not been confirmed when the first reports were filed, and Okaloosa County had not announced an opening date for recreational divers. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said on November 11 that its researchers will study how marine organisms colonise the huge new structure and how the underwater ecosystem develops around it.

Source: DeeperBlue

"We're trying to be the best diving destination in the world," Tomecek said. Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of the ship's designer William Francis Gibbs, said: "She really embodies and expresses this country's best. She represents pride and resilience and strength and beauty."

Source: Associated Press via Military.com