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\n The SS United States, without its smokestacks, at port in Mobile, Ala., before its sinking on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Destin-Fort Walton Beach\/Screenshot by NPR<\/p>\n
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Destin-Fort Walton Beach\/Screenshot by NPR<\/p>\n
The fastest passenger liner in the world crossed the Atlantic Ocean in less than four days. On Wednesday, it sank in five hours.<\/p>\n
The SS United States, launched in 1951 and longer than the RMS Titanic, once transported<\/a> four presidents, the Mona Lisa and a slate of 20th century movie stars. After decades spent rusting<\/a>, and facing the scrap heap, its minders settled on a deal to turn the vessel into what’s expected to be the world’s largest artificial reef off the coast of Okaloosa County, Fla.<\/p>\n Crews removed plugs in the ship’s hull, allowing it to fill with water without the use of explosives. After hours of delays, its final moments went quickly. The ship tilted onto its side and dipped below the waves. <\/p>\n The sinking marks a bittersweet coda to the era of gleaming behemoths that crossed the seas in elegant fashion. It is also the latest in an ongoing effort by coastal communities to lure thrill-seeking tourists away from international destinations, one that has so far generated surprising economic benefits.<\/p>\n “For those of us who love shipwrecks and love ships in general, it was way more tragic to see it sitting and rusting away at the dock,” wreck diver and maritime enthusiast Karen Flynn told NPR.<\/p>\n \n American actor and comedian Milton Berle clowning around on the deck of the SS United States during an east-west crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on July 15,1952.<\/p>\n Ingeborg Talliarek\/Keystone\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/p>\n hide caption\n <\/p>\n toggle caption Ingeborg Talliarek\/Keystone\/Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Her diving club, the Maryland-based Atlantic Wreck Divers, booked tickets and a charter boat just days after a date for the ship’s “deployment,” as the sinking is diplomatically described, was set.<\/p>\n “We’ve dove everything that you can around the world,” Flynn said. “This will just be one more unique, new thing for us to dive.”<\/p>\n A potential tourism boom <\/p>\n In many ways, Flynn and her club are the exact type of visitor that Okaloosa County is hoping to attract: divers planning to stay overnight who will spend a fair amount of money on equipment, food and lodging during their travels.<\/p>\n The Florida panhandle county has sunk hundreds of artificial reefs, many of which are ships or boats.<\/p>\n “Certainly this is the biggest that we’ve done,” said Okaloosa County tourism director Jennifer Adams.<\/p>\n The United States, which is nearly 1,000 feet long, is now the centerpiece of that watery collection.<\/p>\n Reefs bring in roughly $10 million to $12 million in annual economic benefits for the county, Adams said. She expects that number to climb now, and for the county to recoup its $10 million investment<\/a> in the United States in “a couple of years.”<\/p>\n To fulfill that promise, the liner’s transformation was designed to appeal to tourists, marine life and federal regulators, Adams said. Its hull was stripped of toxic materials and bulky components, and the ship itself was placed just over 20 nautical miles from the city of Destin’s beaches.<\/p>\n “It should rest at a place where its upper decks \u2026 are not outside of the recreational diving limits,” said Flynn, the diver.<\/p>\n \n SS United States seen at its former berth in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n SS United States Conservancy<\/p>\n hide caption\n <\/p>\n toggle caption SS United States Conservancy<\/p>\n Panhandle counties now have a claim to several big-ticket ships that could draw tourists. The SS United States joins the USS Oriskany \u2014 a 888-foot post-war aircraft carrier sunk<\/a> by the U.S. Navy off Pensacola in 2006 \u2014 and is set to make the area home to the first and second largest artificial reefs<\/a> globally.<\/p>\n Since 1940, Florida alone has created more than 4,000 artificial reefs, according to a state fish and wildlife commission tally<\/a>. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed 2017 data on diving tourism<\/a> around artificial and natural reefs. It calculated that visits to just a few of those reefs generated almost a billion dollars in annual economic benefits.<\/p>\n Economist Andrew Ropicki, at the University of Florida, says Okaloosa and its surrounding counties have something of a “critical mass” of these planned shipwrecks.<\/p>\n “You can capture more of those tourism dollars than [other areas],” he said.<\/p>\n But Ropicki also warned that an overinvestment in reefing might eventually lead to diminishing returns, as visitor interests shift or they become overwhelmed by choice.<\/p>\n Adams, the Okaloosa tourism director, told NPR plans are already in the works to sink “five or six” additional artificial reefs after the SS United States.<\/p>\n For now, however, she hopes the sight of such a unique ship below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is enough to draw crowds.<\/p>\n Sovereign of the seas <\/p>\n Wednesday’s sinking carries a far more complicated set of emotions for Susan Gibbs. She’s head of the SS United States Conservancy \u2014 custodian through much of the ship’s ill-fated stretch<\/a> moored in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n![\"SS](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/1794466098_978_.jpeg\")
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