By Steve Gorman
Nov 11 (Reuters) - Famed ocean liner SS United States, the largest passenger ship ever built in America and the world's fastest, headed for the sea floor near Florida on Wednesday in a deliberate sinking designed to transform the vessel into the world's biggest artificial reef.
The finale to a year-long process preparing the ship to meet its destiny, 75 years after it was first launched at sea, was presented in a livestream showing aerial views of the once-grand vessel's rusted hulk,
stripped of its two smokestacks, afloat but quietly, slowly settling into calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The ship, measuring nearly 1,000 feet from stem to stern, was surrounded by onlookers and safety crews aboard dozens of tugboats and recreational vessels that accompanied the ocean liner as it was towed out to sea for its final voyage.
By then, work crews had spent months removing all environmentally unsafe materials from the ship, including residual fuel, wiring, glass, ductwork and other non-metal items, as well as any objects that could pose entanglement hazards for scuba divers.
The crews then cut holes strategically throughout the ship's hull and its decks to ensure that it would sink in a gradual, level and uniform manner, according to a fact sheet posted online by project organizers. No explosives were being used.
Passageways also were cut through the interior to allow for marine life to thrive in and around the ship on the sea floor.
If all goes as planned, the aging 20th-century vessel will come to rest upright on the gulf floor at a depth of 180 feet off the coast of Destin, Florida, a resort town and recreational fishing haven known for its white sand beaches and emerald green waters. The upper deck is expected to end up about 50 feet beneath the surface, organizers said.
The sinking process began at about 1 p.m. CST but was so imperceptibly slow that the majority of the ocean liner's hull remained well above the surface as the sun set on the idle ship, surrounded by blinking lights of nearby vessels.
The SS United States, a marvel of post-World War Two oceanic luxury and engineering that carried the rich and famous across the Atlantic at speeds still unmatched, was retired from service in 1969 amid the rising popularity of commercial air travel.
The vessel sat moored for nearly 30 years in Philadelphia, seemingly destined to be sold for scrap, before authorities in Okaloosa County, in Florida's panhandle, stepped in to purchase the ship as part of a $13 million project.
"It was our goal to make sure that she wasn't lost forever," David Lawrence, a board member of the SS United States Conservancy, which sold the ship to Okaloosa County, told the Public Broadcasting System.
After obtaining permission from the US Coast Guard and other agencies, the vessel was towed to a shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, where it was prepared for disposal at sea.
The plan is to turn the decommissioned ship, the largest ocean liner ever built entirely in the US and the fastest to cross the Atlantic in either direction, into what Okaloosa County bills as the world's largest artificial reef.
The SS United States will be in good company, joining a collection of more than 500 smaller underwater sites created from the remains of various sunken ships comprising a divers' haven known as the Destin-Fort Walton Beach Artificial Reefs.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Stephen Coates)
