SS United States

Benthic2 said:

I can see both sides of it. We need to keep US shipyards busy, because we are always going to need ships for the Navy/Coast Guard/Etc., and we don't want to outsource that. But...we also like to believe in capitalism and the free market. We'd like to have mulitiple domestic ship yards bid on navy ships....but how many ship yards can stay busy without the US Gov't force feeding them jobs ?

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Same issues as other manufacturing and other businesses when you talk about free market. Employment laws and tax laws are not comparable. The cruise industry is the prime example with Carnival paying virtually no income taxes and their employees not subject to US labor or tax laws or health regulations. The primary reason you see yacht owners using flags of convenience is to save money on the crew.

Building the ships isn't the big issue. It's operating and staffing of the ships.

FoxtrotCharlie said:

"The problems with saving that ship are quite great: 1, She's an ocean liner and there are reasons that there are essentially no others remaining, certainly none in service."

I would argue that the QM2 is indeed an ocean liner, and probably the last, as opposed to a 'cruise ship'. We have sailed her through some rough North Atlantic waters and she behaves beautifully. And she was build for the North Atlantic crossings.

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Yep, we did too. One of the roughest crossings the captain had ever seen according to the daily announcement and it was impressive and thrilling to watch. Wouldn't have missed it for the world, that ship is a spectacular feat of engineering (built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique in France by the way). As much as I love classic (and the one modern) liners, it's way too late for the United States now. One trip on the QM2 we had a table with the widow of one of the United States' senior officers, under Captain Alexanderson. She agreed that it looked beautiful from a distance but having traveled on it more times than she can count, she thought that ship was horrible -- everything was metal, doors and hatches and deck furniture and railings and cabinet doors and even the stairway treads -- everything clanged and clattered and it was unbearably hot and uncomfortable. You couldn't take a walk on the open decks on a sunny day without burning your hand on some hot piece of metal. She said even one of the grand pianos had an aluminum cabinet and lid and it sounded like one of those child's toys where you hit metal bars with a clapper. She hated that ship, even in its glory days.

We've stayed on the old Queen Mary in Long Beach too. So beautiful in its glory days, but large parts of that ship are very tired and shaky in spite of the huge amounts of money have been poured into that thing (I know, they just launched yet another round of renovations, yet another infusion of money). They're boats, bolting them to docks doesn't mean they're still not bottomless sinkholes for money. Once-beautiful sinkholes, but sinkholes nonetheless.

My mother came over from Scotland on one of the Cunard Line Ships, with literally nothing. I don't remember for sure, but I think it may have been the QM.

In the early 70's, my entire family boarded the Oriana to move back to Scotland. We ended up returning to the States after about a year, but the experience was amazing and got me hooked on ships. I still have vivid memories as a kid of traveling through the Panama Canal and watching brave N Sea Fisherman bobbing around like corks in some big sea.

These ships will be missed.

kthoennes said:

We've stayed on the old Queen Mary in Long Beach too. So beautiful in its glory days, but large parts of that ship are very tired and shaky in spite of the huge amounts of money have been poured into that thing (I know, they just launched yet another round of renovations, yet another infusion of money). They're boats, bolting them to docks doesn't mean they're still not bottomless sinkholes for money. Once-beautiful sinkholes, but sinkholes nonetheless.

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Disney tried to manage the ship years ago but gave up. I believe it has changed hands several times since then. I was also on it last year, and she was looking a bit rough. But, at least they are trying.

I've been following this thread pretty closely. Only thing I can say: "There's a time and place for everything". This ship's time has passed. It should be recycled. IMHO

Interesting few videos on the SS UNITED STATES on the "SS UNITED STATES Conservancy" website. It's sad to see a ship like her waste away but she was really built at the end of the ocean liner era. If she was just another ocean liner, she would have been scrapped decades ago...

SS UNITED STATES: MADE IN AMERICA | SS United States Conservancy

With the tremendous waste billions in Washington ....restoration and putting in service is peanuts ....what's another two or three hundred million ...peanuts

DHeckrotte said:

...She's basically a very large destroyer, sharp, narrow, huge engines. She was intended to be a troop carrier like the other older ocean liners became during the two major wars.

So! All the SSUS is possibly good for is something large and land based with a certain cachet. Lots of square footage. Low floor-to-floor heights. Lots of space w/o adequate windows (think of any office you've been in that has small portholes widely spaced?). I think the low floor to floor heights is the major problem. Whole, snazzy old office buildings cannot be updated because of that; there's no room for ductwork, plumbing, sprinkler piping, electrical, or computer wiring.

A museum ship she's not; there's nothing left and what was there originally was pretty spartan: removable painted steel panels with marinite core (foamed concrete with asbestos fiber reinforcement. Now sold w/o the asbestos.). Even the luxury spaces were pretty plain, however decorated with non-flammable 'art'.

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I think this is pretty spot on. Here's a good video showing her condition. The low floor to ceiling heights, as mentioned above, would severely limit her use in converting the space.

She's a beautiful ship on the outside, IMHO, not so much on the inside. Not surprising as she really is a gussied up troop carrier.

Unfortunately, to me, it seems like a lost cause trying to save her. She is just to damn big and prohibitively expensive.

Jim

Take lots of pictures for posterity, and scap her.

Check out the cavitation burn on that spare prop!! In the video linked two posts above. Apparently been the bane of go-fasts even then.