John Delach

In 1969, when United States Lines took the SS United States out of service while the ship was receiving her annual check-up at Newport News Ship Building, the operators essentially walked away from America’s flagship. However, US Lines was only the operator. The real owner was Uncle Sam under the control of the Maritime Administration, MARAD, that still had plans for this magnificent ship.

The Department of Defense proposed that the Big U be converted to a hospital ship as her size and speed would allow the liner to be rapidly deployed to address any crisis around the world. The plan would have included up to 23 operating theaters,  1,600 hospital beds and a full set of specialist rooms comparable to any major land-based hospital. The navy ultimately rejected the plan as being too expensive and impractical.

MARAD decided that the holding on to the Big U was also impractical and the navy finally declassified the ship’s design features.  In 1980, MARAD disposed of the liner by selling it for $7 Million to a Seattle based developer who planned to revitalize the Big U as a floating condominium. But this owner’s financial status deteriorated so he neglected the vessel still docked in Norfolk. Consequently, her interiors became thoroughly ruined with water damage and mold.

The ships fittings and furniture were spared this fate, but not in a good way. They were gone before the water damage took place because he sold them at auction to pay creditors. Three hundred thousand fans and collectors participated in the week-long auction and raised $I.65 million for the objects taken from the ship. Still, the owner was forced into bankruptcy. The United States was seized by US Marshals and put up for auction.

The new owners planned to refurbish the ship and return it to trans-Atlantic service paired with the Queen Elizabeth 2.  They only paid $2.6 million at auction as the Big U was loaded with asbestos as its insulation. This was common for ships built in the 1950s. As we know, the world had come to understand that breathing in asbestos would cause cancer that can kill the victim. So, it had to be removed.

On June 4, 1992 the ship was towed to the Sevastopol Shipyard in Ukraine and underwent asbestos removal from 1993 to 1994. The interior of the ship was almost completely stripped down to the bulkheads. The open lifeboats were also removed as they were obsolete and violated international rules. In June of 1996, she was once again towed across the Atlantic to a new home in Philadelphia. Starting in 1997 a continuous chain of potential saviors entered the scene with all kinds of “what if ideas” only to eventually slink away into the night.

They included Operating the ship as a cruiser in Hawaii and convert her to a floating  hotel like the Queen Mary in Long Beach.  Norwegian Cruise Lines, (NCL) bought the ship, deemed the hull to be sound and in 2004 commenced feasibility studies regarding retrofitting the Big U. Once NCL realized this would cost between $700 million and One Billion, they lost interest.

The SS United States Conservancy was created in 2009 led by William Gibbs granddaughter, Susan Gibbs, who set out to save the ship from being scrapped by raising funds to purchase her. On July 30, H. F. Lenfest, a Philadelphia media entrepreneur and philanthropist, pledged a matching grant of $300,000 to help the Conservancy purchase the ship from NCL. In November of 2010, the Conservancy announced a new plan to develop a “multi-purpose waterfront complex as part of a stalled Foxwoods Casino project only to have this idea collapse a month later when the state Gaming Control Board revoked Foxwood’s license. Still, the Conservancy bought the Big U from NCL in February of 2011.

The Conservancy’s record for re-purposing was no better than all the others. Every project to re-locate the Big U failed; in particular, New York and Miami. All the while, the Conservancy’s funding could not keep up with the monthly costs of $80,000 to keep the vessel moored in Philadelphia.

By 2018, the situation became more desperate. Several developers proposed variations on the same old solutions. By 2021, the owners of Philadelphia’s Pier 82, where the ship had rested all these years had had enough. They went to court to increase the daily rent to $1,700 and sued for $160,000 in back rent. In June of 2024, Federal Judge, Anita Brody found in favor of the pier’s owners and gave the Conservancy 90 days to remove the Big U.

That’s when Florida’s Okaloosa County announced plans to buy and sink the ship to create the world’s largest artificial reef. MS Gibbs welcomed this solution.

Let’s face it, forty-five years is much too long. Let her go. Let the Big U’s purgatory finally end. For everyone who loves the Big U, let us pray that this plan becomes a reality.