They said it could take 45 minutes. She held on for hours. A ship built to survive, fighting until her very last breath. She deserved so much more than the ending we gave her. Rest easy, SS United States. #SSUnitedStates
SS United States wreck dive, November 12, 2026.
The top deck will be roughly 55 to 65 feet below the surface, with the bottom on the seafloor around 180 feet down.
Video credit Casey Walentowicz.
#ssunitedstates
“An age of glory passed like a lightning flash. The mandate of heaven passed from you but you didn't see. Times change and power passes. It is the pity of the world."
that's a fair point, if they had the funds to sink her after she kept fighting, why not take that and try to fix her? seems like there was a mission here...
They spent 13 times more sinking the SS United States than they did buying her.
Okaloosa County paid around $1 million for the ship and about $13 million to turn her into a reef.
Nobody could find the money to save her, and the money to sink her was found.
The same thing happened to Olympic, Titanic’s sister, scrapped in 1935 because she cost too much to run.
We would give anything to have her now.
Becoming the world’s largest artificial reef is a decent end, and she will do real good down there for marine life.
I still think people will look back and ask why we didn’t keep her.
Sailors are some of the most superstitious people on the planet. They see signs everywhere. They believe loads of things that we here on land would think are crazy.
This sinking has to be an omen. The SS United States, one of the largest ocean liners ever built, the fastest of her day, being sunk on Veterans Day after a major political realignment in the US. That correlation is enough to make me feel superstitious.
What’s more is the fact that they had to put in hours of effort to sink the ship. It was meant to be a 45-minute spectacle done during daylight hours. Instead, they spent hours trying to push the boat until she finally gave in and sank. What’s more, they wanted the ship sunk standing upright, and they definitely didn’t get that. There’s a chance the ship might’ve capsized on her way down, effectively killing any chance of it being a tourist attraction.
People on here have been posing this sinking as an allegory to the downfall of the United States as it once was, and I don’t entirely disagree. It’s poetic what happened last night. The United States putting up a fight, even in her dying moments is just as beautiful as it is tragic. I just hope the country that inspired her name doesn’t suffer the same fate.
@TitanicNewYork At least she's upright in all her glory (as much as you can say for it...), was worried she would fall on her side from what the videos showed. Glad she's still upright.
Just feel bad she's down there and not up here...
The SS United States is sitting upright on the sea bed.
Diver Captain Will Hinton (pictured at stern) and Rustin Cassway the first to dive the SS United States wreck.
#SSUnitedStates
There's a lot of people in my comments today who believe it completely unacceptable to be sad for our flagship, using every excuse to justify why it's irrational to care.
Let me make something clear:
The tragedy of the United States isn't a tragedy because of sunken steel. It's a tragedy because within our Republic, there exists a fatal disease.
The spirit of the American man is slowly fading into history- the frontiersman, the explorer, the industrialist... and most importantly- the citizen.
What were once citizens have become consumers. Men and women today exist ignorant to the turning wheel of time and exist in the endless cycle of distraction, merely existing as if it were the end of history. In their distraction, recognize the value of the shoulders we stand on, and the burning need to build a greater republic for our children.
Fewer and fewer are even having children.
A nation is its people, and those people are immortalized through the legacy of their works. To deny this is to deny ourselves a nation.
As fewer men endeavor to preserve and continue the unbroken chain of the great American works, the wheel of time will continue to turn, and with it, the distracted American risks being left in history.
We do not save this nation by justifying why we should not care. We do not save this nation by winning arguments on the internet.
We save this nation by preserving the evidence of our achievements, and achieving even more for our children.
That is our solemn obligation as American citizens.
The Queen Mary is owned by the city of Long Beach CA (after Disney). And aren't they also having issues keeping her maintained as well? I'm not saying it as an excuse to let SS US sink, it's a travesty, but it might have needed far more money than anyone would have been willing (or wanted) to put in. I wish she could have been saved too, but every news bulletin made it sound like money was always the problem and the pier rental was too much.
Also, given all the self hatred of US, wonder if it also had that going against it despite being an amazing ship...
One of the reasons I don’t like socialism is public bathrooms.
A public bathroom is about as basic a shared resource as you can get. Everyone gets to use it, and everyone is expected to show a little consideration for the next person. The rules aren’t particularly complicated.
And yet, a shocking number of adults can’t even manage to throw their paper towels in the trash. Some will pee all over a toilet seat and leave it for the next person. And the next person, who didn’t make the mess, certainly isn’t going to clean it up either.
Now imagine trusting these same people to collectively manage an entire economy.
We can’t even get everyone to agree that cleaning up their own pee is a personal responsibility, but somehow we’re supposed to believe everyone will become hardworking, responsible, and considerate when we’re sharing the fruits of each other’s labor.
Now, compare your average public restroom to a Buc-ee’s bathroom.
Buc-ee’s figured something out. Clean bathrooms attract customers. Customers spend money. So the company has a financial incentive to keep those bathrooms spotless. They hire people to maintain them, hold employees accountable, and compete for your business.
And people will literally plan their road trips around stopping there.
That’s capitalism. Someone recognized a problem, found a way to solve it, and made money because people valued the result.
Of course, not everyone contributes equally to society. Some people work harder, make better decisions, and take more responsibility. Others seem perfectly content making life more difficult for everyone around them.
I believe people should have the freedom to live however they choose. I also believe in helping people who genuinely need it.
But I have a hard time accepting an economic philosophy that expects me to trust everyone to act in the collective interest when some people can’t be bothered to clean up after themselves.
Buc-ee’s figured out how to get people to willingly pay for a better experience.
Socialism wants me to believe the people leaving paper towels on the floor will suddenly become responsible stewards of everyone else’s resources.
I’m going with the beaver.