JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The fastest ocean liner to ever cross the Atlantic is about to embark on its final voyage. As Matt Guilhem of member station WHYY reports, the SS United States is headed to the bottom of the sea and into the record books again.
MATT GUILHEM, BYLINE: When the SS United States set sail on its maiden voyage in July of 1952, it was an engineering marvel and the peak of luxury. With its jet-black hull and gleaming pair of red funnels, it captured the transatlantic speed record going both east and west, a record it still holds. Today, the stately old ship is rusting away at a dock in south Philadelphia. The black paint has turned into reptilian scales. The funnels have faded to a dull pink, and the glamorous vessel from a bygone age is in a tough predicament.
SUSAN GIBBS: We face the painful but unavoidable choice between scrapping America's flagship or converting her into an artificial reef in tandem with a land-based museum.
GUILHEM: Susan Gibbs is the head of the SS United States Conservancy and the granddaughter of the ship's designer. After maintaining the vessel for years, the group chose the latter following a legal battle with the owner of the ship's pier. The vessel will be towed to the Gulf of Mexico to become a habitat for marine life as the world's biggest artificial reef and a destination for divers. At a table on the weathered back deck of the ship, Gibbs signed away the vessel - that's bigger than the Titanic - to the chairman of the Okaloosa County Board of Commissioners. Paul Mixon sees the $10 million deal as one more accomplishment for the storied ship.
PAUL MIXON: Having the opportunity to dive it, I think it brings that history back to life. Being the fastest ship across the sea and now being the largest artificial reef in the world, it stays in continuation of a legacy.
GUILHEM: The jet age sealed the fate of the great ocean liners, and the SS United States was taken out of service in 1969. It managed to avoid the scrap heap for years and ended up in Philadelphia in 1996. While the final destination of the old ship is the waters off the Florida Panhandle, Okaloosa County Natural Resources chief Alex Fogg says it will first call at Virginia for pre-sinking prep.
ALEX FOGG: Back then, there were certain additives in the paint and other materials on board. We have to get rid of all of it. So over the next year - which is going to take a long time - all of those hazardous materials are going to be removed.
GUILHEM: And when the time comes for the ship to slip beneath the waves forever, Fogg says it will go quietly.
FOGG: The scuttling process doesn't involve explosives or any sort of dramatic things. This will be a very controlled situation through hulls and other things being opened in the deck and controlled flooding over the course of however many hours before it makes it to the sea floor.
GUILHEM: While the ship will be sunk, its legacy, and hopefully, some of its most iconic elements, will live on at a planned museum. This isn't the ending Susan Gibbs and the conservancy envisioned for the record-breaking liner that carried royalty, celebrities and even the Mona Lisa. However...
GIBBS: Certainly, the future museum and the dive site will open her up to so many more people. Really, from 1969 to now, she's been quiet. So this is an enormous and exciting opportunity.
GUILHEM: As the SS United States prepares for its final chapter under the waves off Florida, the vessel known as America's flagship will go out just like it came in - one for the record books. For NPR News, I'm Matt Guilhem, in Philadelphia.
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