The SS United States: A Throwback Ocean Liner That Refuses to Die

this video is brought to you by squarespace whether it's your new profession or a lifelong passion start your journey to website glory with squarespace check out their awesome all-in-one platform through the link in the description below more on them in a bit [Music] it is a ship which was once the envy of the world a gleaming leviathan motoring back and forth across the atlantic at a record-breaking speed a record for a passenger liner that still holds 51 years after it last sale the ss united states was the pride of the nation when it took to the seas in 1951 a true pearl that was inspired by classic british liners the rms queen mary and queen elizabeth which visited the american shores frequently during world war ii and which carried many thousands of men back across the ocean to take part in the epic struggle to liberate europe the story of the ss united states is both short and also long in that it remained at sea for only 17 years but has for the last 51 years passed through a series of different locations and owners and regularly seemed on the verge of either making a comeback or being scrapped for good america's failed ocean liner currently sits beside pier 82 on the delaware river in philadelphia her paint chipped her skeleton slowly rusting a true icon that refuses to go quietly the tale of this boat begins over a century ago with a man by the name of william francis gibbs disillusioned with live as a real estate lawyer gibbs quit law in 1916 to focus on his dream building the fastest ship in the world the fact that he had next to no experience in this field didn't seem to put him off and his enthusiasm managed to capture the attention of jp morgan jr one of the directors of the international mercantile marine imm who agreed to finance his project the american entry into world war ii derailed this endeavor as the imm soon backed out however while the war may have scuppered his ambition of building his own ship from scratch it did bring the next best thing the german ss vettel and a 54 282 gross ton passenger liner had arrived in new york shortly before the outbreak of the war considering the dominance of the british navy at the time it was deemed unsafe to leave and in 1917 the ship was seized by the us government it was first renamed uss veterans and then on the recommendation of president woodrow wilson it was changed to uss lebaton so what does all of this have to do with gibbs i hear you ask well guess who was placed in charge of the renovation after the war gibbs and his brother formed a company gibbs and cox in 1922 and began work designing their own ships which culminated with ss america which was launched on the 31st of august 1939 the day before hitler began bulldozing his way into poland the speedy ocean liners that gibson envisioned were now no longer needed but as the war progressed and u-boats began inflicting terrible losses on the merchant navy he redirected his efforts to design a merchant ship that could be built quickly and efficiently the result was the liberty ships now we've already done a video on the liberty ship so i won't go into more detail here except to say that they may well be the most unsung heroes of world war ii so when you're done with this video please do consider giving that one a watch with the triumphant end to the war and his credibility now sky high after the success of the liberty ships it was finally time for what gibbs had long described as the big ship the rapid industrialization of many sectors of the united states meant that the stars had now aligned it was now or never for william francis gibbs as i mentioned at the start of this video the americans had taken a shine to the large regal british liners that often visited their ports it's probably fair to say that the burgeoning confidence that had come with victory led many to question why the united states didn't have anything similar the ss america was a glorious ship but it still fell short of being a true world beater anyway it needed a running mate the first thing you need to bear in mind with the building of the ss united states was that the construction of the superstructure involved using the largest amount of aluminium used on any project by that point in history either on sea or on land not only did this make the ship significantly lighter than it had been constructed with wood it meant that it was far less likely to incur the same kind of disaster as the ss normandy a french liner that had caught fire in new york harbor and sunk in 1942 a visual memory that seemed etched into the mind of many during design deliberations in fact not only was the superstructure not made of wood but practically every part of the ship including accessories decorations and interior surfaces were either aluminium glass or other kinds of metals the mahogany grand pianos were only allowed after a demonstration in which they were doused in petrol and then ignited the pianos themselves did not catch fire the only wood that was otherwise permitted on board the ss united states were the wooden chopping boards located in the galley to comply with u.s navy guidelines the ship was to be heavily compartmentalized which in theory meant that it would be safer in the event of an accident at sea and its hull which was mostly prefabricated would eventually be composed of 183 000 different pieces lastly the united states government had agreed to fund two-thirds of the construction cost with one condition that it would be used as a troop transport in the event of war it had to be able to be converted into a ship capable of carrying 14 000 soldiers in as little as 48 hours now you might be thinking that world war ii had just ended so what could the u.s possibly be anticipating but as the construction of the ship began u.s troops were again deploying overseas this time in korea now you might not be in the market to construct a battleship but you might be in the market for a new website and that's exactly 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of a website or a domain let's get back to the brinyc the keel of the ss united states was laid down on the 8th of february 1950 at the newport news shipbuilding and dry dock company making it the first ocean liner to be constructed in a dry dock with the help of 3100 workers in just over two years and three months the vast ship was ready and it came with a catalog of innovations that made it one of the most technologically advanced non-combat ships on the planet it had cost 78 million dollars to build which is roughly 780 million dollars today it came with four propellers two four-bladed and two five-bladed that had been designed by the pioneering female engineer elaine kaplan remember this was the 1950s a time when women struggled to forge their own employment paths let alone design the propellers that would be pivotal to the ship's record-breaking speed each propeller was built from manganese bronze and weighed a massive 27 215 kilograms thus 60 thousand pounds on the ship's deck were four masts called king posts each with two booms which acted as cranes allowing the crew to load cargo faster than ever before in total the ship could carry 4190 cubic meters of cargo the equivalent of 37 modern semi-trailers the two giant funnels were the highest ever to be installed on a ship 19.8 meters in height they are equal to a six-storey building and come with wings located in the bag designed to deflect smoke away from the passengers on the decks below if you look closely you'll notice they are at a slight slant backwards which was said to give the ship an air of motion they are also asymmetrical meaning that the funnel behind was slightly smaller and impressively they even went to the trouble of calculating the percentage of red white and blue paint needed to keep it all neat and tidy in case you're interested the forward funnel was 75 red 10 white and 15 blue while the aft funnel was 17.8 percent red 11.7 wide and 17.5 percent blue as you might expect with this new era of safety there were ample lifeboats to go around which contributed to the ship often being referred to as the safest ever built the 24 lifeboats and additional small rafts could hold 4060 people over a thousand more than if the ship was at 100 capacity somewhat coincidentally one of the lead investors in united states lines which had partially funded the ship was vincent aston son of j.j astor who had died on the titanic it was clear that absolutely no chances were being taken of that tragic accident repeating itself the ship measured 302 meters in length roughly the height of the chrysler building in new york its beam the width was 30.9 meters and its draft the height from the water line to the deck was 9.5 meters it weighed 53 330 tons which is about twice as heavy as the statue of liberty alright so let's talk about speed because that's often the first thing that is mentioned when talking about the ss united states it came with four westinghouse double reduction geared steam turbines and eight babcock and wilcox boilers producing a phenomenal 240 000 horsepower which pushed the ship along at 35 knots meaning it could outrun many of the battleships at sea at the time there were even whispers of it being able to go as fast as 44 knots but this was never fully verified as you might imagine with power like that the ship began life at a thunderous speed on july the 3rd 1952 the ss united states steamed clear of new york harbor and set a course east at the helm was commodore harry manning a well-known personality who had at one point acted as a pilot for amelia earhart those involved with the ship's launch have been careful not to let talk of a record-breaking crossing get out of hand on the first day the ship encountered a fog bag but once clear of it commodore manning ordered the ship's engines to be increased to full power and the ss united states roared into life she arrived in britain three days 10 hours and 40 minutes after leaving new york shattering the transatlantic speed record by more than 10 hours on the way back she broke the westbound journey record with a time of 3 days 12 hours and 12 minutes at an average speed of 34.51 knots these were dizzying days for the ss united states as it rocketed back and forth across the atlantic ocean at 23 public rooms 395 staterooms and 14 first class suites often were filled to capacity while those on deck could enjoy games such as shuffleboard and deck tennis with the large wind deflectors providing a comfortable environment to relax in on the high seas it quickly became known as america's flagship and attracted passengers from all over the world including bob hope princess grace of monaco salvador dali rita hayworth harry truman john wayne the duke and duchess of windsor and duke ellington then in 1963 it carried a very different kind of precious cargo as the mona lisa was transported across the atlantic to be exhibited in washington d.c the ship was even used as a film set on three separate occasions for walt disney's bon voyage gentleman marry brunettes and monster go home these were the glory days but alas they wouldn't last as the 1960s dawned the role of the transatlantic liner was under threat the introduction of pan am international flights in 1958 acted as a direct competitor and though numbers on board the ss united states during the summer months remained high overall they quickly began to drop as the decade progressed things got steadily worse the popularity of flying really took off pun intended while the increasing cost of oil meant that running the ss united states with dwindling passenger numbers became a substantial loss in 1969 the ship that had been the envy of the world when it appeared in the early 1950s was pulled from service over the next few decades the ship was passed from owner to owner as it waited patiently in norfolk virginia there was talk of using it as a casino that would be moored off the atlantic city coast but it was eventually sold for just 5 million 33.5 million today to a company who wanted to use the ship in a timeshare cruise ship format but again this plan eventually fell through in 1984 to pay credit as much of the interior of the ship and furniture was sold at auction and the ship itself was sold again this time for 2.6 million dollars 6 million today to a turkish shipping family the ship was towed to turkey then on to ukraine where it had much of its original interior stripped out it's not immediately clear what's happened at this point but the ship was towed back to the united states in 1996 where it was docked in south philadelphia backstage side ownership passed to edward cancel then on to norwegian cruise line ncl who again made a lot of noise about refurbishing the vessel but once again nothing came of it and by 2010 lcl were actively looking to scrap the ship unwilling to continue paying the 800 000 a year to keep her afloat at the 11th hour in 2011 ss united states conservancy an organization looking to preserve the ship as a historic monument succeeded in purchasing it for 3 million about 3.4 million dollars today but where are they gonna put it the options seem to be new york miami or to leave it in philadelphia though a feasibility study eventually found that philadelphia was unsuitable the last five or six years have seen painfully little progress except to say that the grand ship appeared to be heading for scrap on numerous occasions the sixty thousand dollars a month rental and upkeep has proven to be a huge stumbling block but miraculously the ss united states has survived thanks to some wealthy donors some of which have remained anonymous the nation may not be sure what to do with this historic ship but they sure aren't ready to let it go just yet [Music] a study done a few years back found that the total cost of putting the ship back to sea would be in the region of a billion dollars as recently as march 2020 rx realty announced its intentions to turn the ship into a 55 740 square meter hospitality and cultural space but at this point we've had it all before only time time's going to tell the photo of this historic vessel is still very much in the air it's highly unlikely that it will ever sail unaided again but there is still hope that this ship might have a second life in it and on a personal level we hope it does this was a groundbreaking ship on many different levels speed safety comfort it had it all and it remains one of the last of its kind anywhere in the world a relic of a bygone era a time of moving slower enjoying the sea breeze for days on end and getting in the old game of paddleboard between the extravagant dining experience is on offer this was the end the golden age of travel i really do hope you enjoyed this video if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe if you've got a suggestion for a future mega projects video please leave it below and as always thank you for watching you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 192,265

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Id: wbgXQiTXwRQ

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2021