“You can’t set her on fire, you can’t sink her and you can’t catch her,” designer William Francis Gibbs boasted about the SS United States, according to Mobile Bay Magazine. Okaloosa County plans to test the middle claim in November, weather permitting.
The liner crossed the Atlantic on her maiden voyage in 3 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes in July 1952, averaging 35.59 knots and beating the Queen Mary’s record by about 10 hours, Invention & Technology reported. That earned the Blue Riband for the fastest passenger liner, and the ship still holds it, per Atlas Obscura.
The Navy treated her top speed as a secret, and a former captain said she “could outrun some destroyers,” per Invention & Technology. The ship cost at least $70 million to build. Atlas Obscura puts the total at $79.4 million, with the U.S. government covering $50 million.
The liner retired in 1969 after 17 years of service and spent decades changing hands and deteriorating, Atlas Obscura reports. A rent fight with the Philadelphia pier owner forced the SS United States Conservancy to sell. Okaloosa County bought the ship for $1 million, according to PhillyVoice, and a tow took it out of Philadelphia on Feb. 19, 2025, headed for Mobile, Alabama.
Florida officials expect to sink the ship in the second week of November, about 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, depending on weather, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The sinking will use no explosives. The county planned to spend $10 million on cleaning the ship, sinking it and building a museum about its history, per PhillyVoice.
Some scientists and preservationists warn that the ship’s zinc chromate primer could pollute the Gulf. Okaloosa County says the project meets EPA standards, PhillyVoice reports. A federal lawsuit from the New York Coalition to Save the SS United States was dismissed in August 2025.
“This is an exciting move forward to create a one-of-a-kind resource for the environment and for our tourism industry,” a county spokesperson said, per The Philadelphia Inquirer. At 990 feet, the liner would top the 888-foot USS Oriskany, the biggest ship ever turned into an artificial reef when the Navy sank it off Pensacola in 2006.
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