The Queen Of The World sent me this sad story:
The ship's remarkable speed earned it the coveted Blue Riband award from Great Britain upon its maiden voyage in 1952. Partially sponsored by the U.S. government during the Cold War era, it was designed as a potential rapid troop carrier if geopolitical tensions escalated, according to the website for the SS United States Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that has overseen the vessel since 2011.
Despite its high level of regard and rich history, the ship faces an uncertain future as it languishes at Pier 82 in south Philadelphia. Its retirement has been fraught with challenges, including the recent threat of eviction due to a lawsuit from Pier 82's landlord, Penn Warehousing, according to an NPR report on Monday, March 11.
The lawsuit alleges the SS United States Conservancy owes between $700,000 and $800,000 in back rent, Warren Jones, one of the conservancy's board members, told the radio station. He said the organization entered into the agreement more than a decade ago, and during the pandemic, the rent was unjustly doubled.
This story is of interest to TQOTW, since she actually was a passenger on that ship. Her dad was in the Air Force and posted to the UK in the early 1960s; they returned from PCS on this. It's sad to see what the ship has become from what it used to be. TQOTW watched this with me and remembered all sorts of things, like the signal flags at the swimming pool.
That was a different world, and people would rather spend 8 hours on a plane than 5 days on a ship, even one as grand as the United States.
Ship preservation is damned hard. Salt, water, temp changes....the universe is constantly trying to destroy them. The USS Texas is another sad example. Maybe they are just not the sort of thing we should try to preserve other than in exceptional cases. HMS Victory for instance. And very little of it is still OG ship. Lots of replacement wood and fittings. Sad, but there's a reason why we think of ships as being like people. They are finite.
ReplyDeleteTacitus
Tacitus, the USS Texas was just put back into water this week after a refit. They're working hard to keep that ship alive.
ReplyDeleteSS United States is pretty much junk now. Gutted and rotting at the pier.
ReplyDeleteIt should have been sent to the breakers decades ago.
ReplyDeleteCut out representative samples for a museum, and junk the rest.
Even the Navy only tries to keep U.S.S. Constitution (as Britistan does with HMS Victory) in good trim, and they foist the rest onto private partners.
Oh, and people are falling all over themselves to spend days on a glorious liner. 30M of them did so last year alone. Just not to get from New York to London.
If they can salvage SS U.S. and sail the Caribbean and out to Bermuda, or tour the Med, they should by all means do so.
Otherwise, lop it off at the waterline, put the top half inside a suitably magnificent barn on dry land, and vacate the pier.
Or else cough up the dough.
Ports aren't charities, and no one has sailed on the thing since 1969.
That means no one under 55 has ever set sail on her.
Looking at recent pics of SS U.S., this case is one where nostalgia has given way to lunacy.
It's past restoration. One of the previous owners gutted the ship, took all the furniture, fittings, and interiors and sold or discarded them. It's an empty metal hull in deteriorated condition. It would make more sense to build a new one than try to bring this ship back.
ReplyDeleteI've driven by this wreck many times. It should be scrapped. Other than the name - there is nothing worthy about it.
ReplyDeleteAll valid points here. THe USS US is a rustbucket and has already been stripped. It's too damn small to be a cruise ship, and the steam plants, aside from being ancient and of scrap value only, use more fuel in a day than a modern cruise ship 5x larger uses in 5.
ReplyDeleteThis subject came up on a maritime message board for merchant mariners last week. There was an even split, retirees who haven't sailed in 25 years and have a $150,000 a year pension and no understanding of economics or contemporary history post 1995, and everyone else who has hopes of dying before they can't pass the physical exams, because their pension money is all being used to fund the old timers.
Everyone Else voted to reenact Ol' Yeller when it comes to this ship... and this is among silly sentimental sailors.
Did you know there is a merchant ship museum that has a working steamship? The SS John W. Brown is a fully functional liberty ship. Very few people visit it. It's frigging awesome, you can take it down the coast when they have a cruise. You know what's not aweseome? A floating WWII era hotel that was abandoned and stripped almost 60 years ago and which will give anyone who even looks at it mesothelioma and tetanus.
I'm being purposefully nasty here because every time I go to Philly, which used to be all the time, I had to tie up at Pier 96 down the street from the United States, and it was like looking at one of those suffering 18 year old blind arthritic incontinent dogs that white women insist on torturing by spending their 401k on them to keep them alive and in hell.
That's probably the best analogy I've done in a month.