Kane went on to give his thoughts about the ship in the light of the newly released information. Taken as a whole, he noted, the ship had the lines of a “rather conventional liner of that era, except that they are exceptionally lean and fine.” But the “delicate balance” of the ship’s form and the distribution of her displacement weight had enabled extraordinary performance—not only in terms of speed, but also fuel efficiency and stability in foul weather. This could only be the achievement of a master designer, one of “exceptional naval architectural art and skill.”2
Kane summed up William Francis Gibbs’s simple design philosophy by saying: “Combine the maximum driving power you can achieve, with the lightest displacement compatible with the work the ship must do, and with the longest, finest and cleanest lines that will serve to make a good wholesome sea-keeping ship.”
But the naval architects, engineers, and reporters in his audience had only one thing on their minds: what was the classified top speed of United States?
The answer was an astonishing 38.32 knots, achieved during the Big Ship’s June 1952 trials—almost 45 land miles per hour. But experts knew that United States was capable of even higher speeds. The 38.32-knot performance was produced by her four Westinghouse turbines, which developed 241,785 shaft horsepower. The maximum engine output was more still, an estimated 247,785 horsepower. The newly released data on the ship’s power also explained something else. It was already well-known that on her maiden voyage, United States averaged 35.59 knots eastbound, capturing the Blue Riband. During that voyage, Kane now pointed out, Commodore Manning did not push United States beyond two-thirds power. The ship had beaten all speed records by a substantial margin, “at less horsepower than either the Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth.” The two larger British ships, each of 80,000 gross tons, had maximum power ratings of about 158,000 shaft horsepower. At a relatively nimble 53,329 gross tons, United States proved herself to have the greatest power-to-weight ratio of any major commercial vessel in history.3 In essence, Gibbs had done what no naval architect had done before: combine the size and luxury of an ocean liner with the lightness and speed of a destroyer. There was also a good economic reason why she wasn’t operated at full engine capacity while in commercial service: to achieve that additional 2-knots difference between her maiden voyage speed (35.59 knots) and her highest trial speed (38.32 knots), the engines had to generate nearly 50 percent more horsepower.4
The declassification of United States’ military secrets also announced to the world that the most advanced liner ever built had become irrelevant to American military needs. Ships would continue to dominate international cargo transport, both military and civilian. But it would be aircraft that would speed American troops to war zones from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the commercial airline industry that would take the American people anywhere they wanted to go.
By 1980, with her secrets now declassified, the military felt it had no possible future use for United States. The U.S. Maritime Administration put the now-rusting giant up for sale. Thirty years before, William Francis Gibbs claimed that “Joe Stalin would love to know what this ship will do.” The asking price was $5 million, or about 7 percent of the $78 million that it had cost to build her back in 1952.5 Thus began a long saga of sale, stripping, stagnation, and sale again.
First, Richard Hadley, a Seattle-based real estate developer, bought the ship, and planned to turn her into floating condominiums. But the scheme was unworkable, and to pay off creditors, Hadley ordered all the ship’s furniture, fittings, and artwork yanked out. Guernsey’s of New York hosted the biggest auction in history—the murals from the Duck Suite, the Ostuni paintings from the Navajo Lounge, the kidney-shaped bar from the ballroom, the butterfly-and-tree-patterned bedspreads, United States Lines monogrammed china, the pots and pans from the galley, the desk from the commodore’s cabin, even the ship’s wheel—all were carted away and put on the block.
Hadley stubbornly held on to the ship itself—now a ransacked, musty shell of her former self—even as the elements began to seep through hatches and broken portholes into interior spaces.6 In 1991, Earl Swift from the Virginia Pilot-Ledger Star boarded the vessel to look around, and was shocked. “Rust has invaded the mammoth black hull,” he wrote, and “boilers are ruined; pumps, motors, and turbines have atrophied. Cabins are stripped or strewn with trash, soggy bedding, [and] paperwork. Bathrooms are littered with smashed porcelain. Hydraulic fluid stands inches deep in some machinery spaces. Pigeon droppings are inches deep on the weather decks. Weeds grow from the superstructure.” A shipping executive was quoted indignantly saying that the owner “has taken what was rightfully a national monument and the vessel has been raped.”7
By the early 1990s Hadley was bankrupt, and United States was on a fast track to the scrap yard. But in 1992, the ship was auctioned to Marmara Marine. Owner Fred Mayer, who had immigrated to America from Turkey on United States in 1963, bought the vessel on the Newport News courthouse steps. The price had dropped to $2.6 million. The new owner hoped to operate United States as a running mate to Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2, the only ship left in regular transatlantic service. He had the great ship towed to Turkey, and then the Ukraine, where her asbestos-laden interiors were stripped down to bare metal. The toxic material was everywhere: in marinite wallboard, floor tile, and pipe insulation.
In 1996, the rust-scarred and now-gutted United States was towed to Philadelphia, where she was tied up on the Delaware River. Mayer’s deal with Cunard collapsed, his syndicate went bankrupt, and the ship was left to languish again. New Jersey developer Edward Cantor then purchased the ship, made promises, and did nothing.
Many people in Philadelphia were unhappy to see the ship docked on their waterfront. “Meet the SS United States, mother of all abandoned vehicles,” the Philadelphia Daily News complained.8
When Cantor died in 2002, his heirs put United States up for sale, hoping to send her to the scrap yard once and for all. At the last minute, Norwegian Cruise Line, which had tried to buy the ship twenty-five years earlier, reappeared and barely outbid an Indian scrapper. “When we discovered this American icon was in jeopardy, we saw a unique opportunity and acted immediately,” said Norwegian Cruise Line CEO Colin Veitch in 2003. “The ship is a classic, she was built in America and is eligible to operate in domestic service under existing law and regulation.”9
NCL America’s stated goal was to run a modernized United States on cruises between the West Coast and Honolulu. The Merchant Marine Act—passed by Congress in 1920 and still in effect today—stipulates that only American-flagged ships can carry passengers and cargo directly between two U.S. ports. United States is one of the few ships afloat that meet those requirements. But refitting United States with the features cruise passengers expect today—stateroom balconies, large outdoor swimming pools, onboard shopping malls—could cost up to $500 million, comparable to the cost of a new cruise ship. NCL let the ship languish. In early 2009, the Great Recession brought on by the financial crisis hit the cruise industry hard. In March of the following year, the company announced that they were putting United States up for sale, and that they were accepting offers from scrappers.