Save the SS United States!

When the fastest ocean liner the world has ever known is about to be decapitated and sunk something needs to be done!

Think about it: The entire goal of an ocean liner was to cross the Atlantic (or to a lesser degree, the Pacific) in the shortest time possible. Luxury was a secondary matter. Notice how so many stories of ocean liner travel involved business magnates, politicians, or famous actors or authors. Ocean liners were the only vehicle of international businessmen. As there was no wireless communication at first, they could not conduct or manage important business while at sea, so getting them to and from land masses as fast as possible was of critical importance. Those businessmen built nations and industries.

Besides that, being at the mercy of the sea was no picnic. The sooner it was over the better. That went for wealthy businessmen and poor immigrants looking for a better life abroad alike.

Greater and greater vessels of higher and higher endurance and speed were built by all major countries in the world to supply that need. Over one hundred years was spent in this pursuit by all major advanced nations. Conquering the ocean was connecting the world.

The SS United States is the Crowning Jewel of that century-long technological endeavor. In her, you are looking at the absolute pinnacle of the entire concept. She is IT: The very highest technological degree achieved in the age of non-flight travel. Not merely an ocean liner, but a Superliner. Not the most luxurious, but the absolute, undisputed, unchallenge-ably fastest. People tend to get wrapped up in the luxury at sea thing and forget that all-out SPEED was the name of the game of an ocean liner. Beating them all is the claim to fame of the ocean greyhound SS United States. She isn't merely the finest example of American ocean liner building, she is the finest example of Superliner building in the entire world. Sinking her is the most heedless, callous, disrespectful, reckless thing imaginable for such a supreme example of an era that only ended because of the advent of transatlantic jetliners. 

The SS United States is a Thoroughbred ocean liner. A Superliner. Every aspect of her just exudes SPEED. She was designed and built with total attention to detail and it shows. Her hull lines, her swept back, streamlined funnels with their airfoils, her swept back mast, her bridge; SPEED. Unmatchable, uncatchable, SPEED and POWER. The very essence of a Superliner is evident in her profile from any angle. Envisioned and designed from the beginning to be one, she radiates all the grace and beauty and presence of any ocean Queen. As a matter of fact, her sleek, graceful lines make the RMS Queen Mary look downright frumpy by comparison.

She must have been a sight to see when she would approach a 30 knot Superliner like the RMS Queen Mary or the RMS Queen Elizabeth or the SS France on the high seas at a closing speed of nearly 75 miles per hour! The smoke from her enormous, towering funnels playing out horizontally behind her due to her speed, her bow slicing through the waves, her massive turbines whining, while their combined available output of an amazing 240,000 shaft horsepower drove her four huge, incredibly advanced, finely engineered and tuned propellors screwing through the water below to thrust her forward at her simply unparalleled velocity, her massive profile would have rocketed out of sight faster than anything else anyone would ever meet! But the spectacle of the encounter would indeed last a lifetime. 

They just witnessed a World Record Holder doing her thing like the high seas Olympic athlete she was; a transatlantic Queen.

Any SS United States passenger would tell you that, on a perfectly calm day, with the sea almost like glass, if they stepped out on deck, it was into a 35-plus mile per hour headwind! That only happened on the 'Big U'. She was the fastest moving object of her size on the face of the earth. 

Sadly, transatlantic ocean travel on an ocean liner is now past. Almost all the former grand ladies of the sea are long gone: The RMS Titanic, of course, and her sister ships, the RMS Lusitania, almost as tragically as the Titanic, her Blue Riband holder sister ship the RMS Mauretania, the RMS Aquitania, the Italian Blue Riband holder SS Rex, her sister ship the SS Conte' de Savoia, the beautiful French Blue Riband holder SS Normandie, the SS Ile de France, the SS France, the Italian SS Andrea Doria, then the SS Michelangelo and her sister ship the SS Raffaello, the RMS Queen Elizabeth, etc... The list goes on and on. And the American SS Independence, her sister ship the SS Constitution, and the SS America, sister ship to the SS United States, better described as her running mate. ALL the German liners, ALL the French liners, ALL the Italian liners... GONE. 

Who are left of the greatest of the greats?  The former Blue Riband holder RMS Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth II - in Dubai! - the SS Rotterdam... and the CURRENT holder of the Blue Riband, for an unbroken 72½ years, the SS United States, technologically the greatest of them all. There is nothing else like her.

Those liners represent the greatest form of long distance travel the world had ever seen until the advent of the jet age. Until then, nothing capable of crossing the cold, treacherous North Atlantic with passengers was faster than the SS United States. Nothing. The SS United States represents the highest form and achievement of long distance surface travel in the world. She is museum worthy for that accomplishment alone. 

As the flagship of her nation and being the bearer of her nation's name, destroying her is an equal or even greater insult and offense than destroying the Statue of Liberty! The Statue of Liberty wasn't even built in the USA, but the SS United States was. Don't overlook that. The SS United States has claim to an all-American origin and heritage that not even the Statue of Liberty does. Coincidentally, at the time of writing this, headlines have been made of politicians in France demanding the return of the Statue of Liberty to France! Nobody can demand the return of the SS United States but her own people, the citizens of the USA. She is born and bred, solid, tangible, pure American History as much as the Liberty Bell, but on an ever so much Grander scale.

Besides many, many other American warships, the four Iowa-Class battleships, Iowa (BB-61), New Jersey (BB-62), Missouri, (BB-63), and Wisconsin (BB-64) have all been preserved as museum ships. The SS United States is every bit as iconic for a peacetime ship as the Iowa-class battleships are for wartime ships. She deserves preservation as much as they do. There is only one of her, while there are four of them. If all four of one class of American warship can be preserved, why can't the ONLY example of the highest achievement of the American merchant marine be saved as well? It is a reprehensible CRIME to destroy the greatest ocean liner the USA has ever built, as well as the fastest the world has ever seen while preserving so, so many warships. Sending the only American-built Superliner bearing the nation's very NAME to the bottom is almost an Act of Treason!

What is proposed and happening is a slap in the face to the love and preservation of all chronological and technological History. Don't do this and then look back and realize with deep regret and remorse what you have done... with no recourse. 

Save the SS United States for others to enjoy the American tradition of Quality and Pride in Workmanship that she was built in.