Inside The ABANDONED S.S United States

[Music] a new queen has been crowned she is the liner united states which holds a double atlantic blue ribbon for speed the 73 million dollar luxury speedster makes the east-west crossing in three days and 12 hours from england to ambrose lightship cutting nine hours from the record held by the queen mary for 13 years a royal welcome awaits the new monarch in new york harbor as she steams to her birth sleek streamlined and trimmed she completes the 2 900 mile run with an average of almost 40 land miles an hour with a hint from her officers that she had plenty in reserve president franklin of the united states lines and grover weyland congratulate commodore harry manning the skipper on bringing back to america the atlantic laurels for the first time in a hundred years a clean sweep for america's new queen of the seas [Music] so [Music] [Music] i cannot believe i am here the ss united states this is it this is the ship [Music] welcome aboard the ss united states we were kindly invited by the conservancy trying to save the ship and given a tour around this astonishing vessel join me as we look back to the past peer through the tragic present and look into the future so this is all first class rooms here and obviously they've all been uh ripped out you could see you know that that was a toilet there this would have been a bathroom and you could see the exteriors of the rooms here but uh they were all ripped out all these walls were were ripped out because of asbestos wow there's one of the elevators there's another elevator right there to the other side of this holy crap [Music] wow i can't believe how deep this is and then some stuff is still retained like this uh the styling of the the railings one thing that's really really interesting about the ship is uh to save weight they the bulkheads here had cutouts and uh that was done for rigidity for uh to make the uh to make the superstructure stronger and from what i've been told this was the first time that has ever been used ever in a transportation device so you if you look at a cross section of an airplane wing you'll see the same thing it's commonly used now but to save weight the ss united states was the first ocean liner or anything to use that technique which is really really quite cool there's just a ghostly aura about it all the echo of my voice while on board i was able to sit down with susan gibbs the president of the ss united states conservancy the owners of the ship and the organization dedicated to save the vessel susan is also the granddaughter of william francis gibbs the ship's designer i first saw the ship here in philadelphia i actually never saw the ship prior to that so in 2001 came and visited the ship much like we're doing today and was just so moved by the fact that she was still here still kind of proud and forgotten but there was a strength in a beauty and i was kind of surprised that i myself had lost touch with the ship and and so had the nation and the world for that matter it's hard it's hard it's hard to she's gone through hell i i mean really pulled from service in 1969 because of operating costs and the fact that jet aircraft were taking over the role that ocean liners had once played since then there have been a number of owners with dreams and plans and and depredations along the way i mean back in 1984 there was an enormous auction that apparently still stands as the biggest auction of all time in which people were you know wandering her decks you know buying doorknobs and forks and towels and you know just everything stripped off boy this ship echoes and makes so many weird noises this was the first class uh theater in lounge it's a first class lounge so you had uh you know everyone traveling and first class performing on the stage and then on to this original um dance floor here and with a sort of imprinted ceiling here with uh going up about five or eight feet and then it has windows that look out onto the promenade here which in itself is such an incredible space look at these original doors just push and then right down the promenade here these doors hanging off their hinges wow from what i understand too this is one of the the first iterations or the first uses of safety glass on a on a ship which is really quite interesting [Music] over the years there have been many attempts to return the vessel back to service most recently in 2016 when crystal cruises had expressed interest yet pulled out later that year there have been a number of uh you know from crystal cruises as you mentioned in 2016 that had exciting plans to to restore her as a as a ocean-going cruise vessel and in each each case you know they're very usually it came down to money and ncl prior to crystal had purchased her with plans to bring her as part of their u.s flag fleet and uh and and that sort of crashed on the shoals of the global economic crisis in 2008 2009 you know so so there there there have been reasons but yeah it's it's really fundamentally about money she's she's big this is a big project and we aren't naive to to uh and so it's going to take a lot but we think we're we're we're getting there and and we think that we think the time has come for this project to finally come to fruition yeah look at the railings here with the the styling okay and then these would have led into the theater with the uh clearly well i guess it's hard to tell on camera but uh there's a significant slope here and uh that's because there would have been actual theater seating it's incredibly hot in this room but you could actually see the styling the wave well the wave of uh of what would be covered with you know styling of some sort that that would give it a bit of a texture behind the the steel around it but this was one of uh if not the first uh seated theater on a ship when she's clear of new york harbor the united states responds to the commands of veteran deck officers one of these experienced men signals full ahead this is the original navigation table wow all right so this is the chart table this is where you have you lay out the charts yeah and then these are where the wheels would be and then a manual windshield wiper and this is the starboard bridge wing with the ship coming in right now yeah look at philadelphia over there [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the sea air is irresistible uh out on deck aft now and uh one thing to notice is that there's no wood decks around this i never really realized i've never thought of it before but uh the entire deck is made up of a of a new new material at least at the time that wasn't wood which is uh unorthodox for a for a ship of this uh age from a of this era but uh yeah it's not wood it's it's to save weight you can see where the shuffleboard used to be here still still holding on after all these years and then above this uh precipice here on this would have been a uh a type of court so coming down from the promenade and down the down one deck here this is one of the few massive propellers that the united states had this was one of the biggest secrets that this ship came with it was uh uh essentially designed by the defense department for this ship for united states lines and this is a proprietary prop that allowed the united states to reach her incredible speeds a fascinating piece of art really it's it's enormous it's probably about i don't know eight nine feet tall and this right here too is um is where from bubbles when the prop is actually rotating small micro bubbles will eat away at uh at the steel itself i think it's often lost on people but the ss united states is incredibly rare the vast majority of ships from this golden era of ocean travel have been lost to the seas or more often scrapped the united states is one of four prominent classic ocean liners afloat in the world at least ones that i could think of and it's one of two in america but the other one that being the rms queen mary has had some hardships as i have covered in a separate video that ship currently formatted as an entertainment complex was never successful long term so what will make the ss united states assuming the conservancy's plans move forward be different and in addition to the queen mary there's also the rotterdam in the netherlands that is another interesting and exciting example that is very profitable and in fact i visited the rotterdam a few years ago and it was just so exciting to see as far as the queen mary as as you know all of her interiors and fixtures and fittings etc you know we're all intact and by the way the queen mary i have to say is the ship that the ss united states trounced in the transatlantic speed race and the fact that she has been gussied up and is sitting over there in california and this ship is languishing is a little irritating so the queen mary all of her uh you know existing fixtures are in place so so the project there was really to kind of honor her as she was and that is not the project here because as you can see the interiors have all been stripped out so this is a kind of a blank canvas for a different expression of reuse and i think that there's also a location location location mantra that a lot of the business viability of any historic liner any real estate project in general depends a lot on on where it is that's what we're working on now as well is finding a an awesome parking spot for this ship so i mean i think the queen mary is fabulous i think the ss united states will be will be different and and now god speed to both of them anyone who's ever been aboard realizes that it's impossible to describe the experience the only way to know what it's like is to travel on the american champion of the ocean um you know when my grandfather was alive he he was so deeply attached to the vessel literally he would call the ship every day she was at sea whenever every time the ship returned from a transatlantic run he would have a driver take him out brooklyn's shore parkway and stand there waiting for her to come you know into toward new york harbor after her european trips you know just just gaze at her and i guess i'm just really happy for him that he is not seeing her look like this but on the other hand sh i um the fact that she is still here after so much time so yeah i'm i'm i'm looking forward to to sort of continue on this journey with her i left too much pride keep you awake i wouldn't give had nothing to say we could have made [Music] i know too much pride [Music] [Music] the good things you had [Music] baby

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 354,924

Rating: 4.9583416 out of 5

Keywords: ss united states, ss america, abandoned ship, ocean liner, queen mary, decaying ship, rusting ship, ss United States future, sinking, shipwreck, susan Gibbs interview, documentary, short film, 2021, 2022, 2020, abandoned ocean liner, urbex, urban exploring, clean, family friendly, 4k, bright sun films, Jake williams, before and after, ship, cruise ship, failed, United States lines, Philadelphia, american, abandoned

Id: EuBKewWTag0

Length: 18min 50sec (1130 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/AtlasCycle]

Bright Sun Films is an amazing channel, a very history and detail driven creator who really dives into the places he visits.

I lived in South Philly for years and used to take peeks at the old girl docked at the pier through fences and on tall buildings nearby. I'm grateful he got in to show me what's actually inside.

[u/napsdufroid]

Very cool. Shame she can't be used for something, but the expense would be astronomical...at least as much as Bezos and Branson spent to go into space

[u/EsseXploreR]

Wow. Filmed pretty recently too. I'd love for them to open it up for tours.

[u/Baron_Von_D]

This is cool, last one I saw showing the interior was from 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0obAXTS93ck

[u/qpiqp]

Love Bright Sun Films. Commenting to save for later.

[u/AbsentEmpire]

The only realistic future this ship has is as scrap metal or being sunk to create an artificial reef.

Crazy that they're able to continue to raise money to pay for dock fees.