Record-Setting Ocean Liner, a Titan of Its Time, Begins Its Final Voyage

The S.S. United States, the largest passenger ship ever built in America, left Philadelphia under tow on Wednesday, eventually to be sunk off the Gulf Coast.

The ocean liner that ferried four presidents across the Atlantic Ocean, hosted Duke Ellington and Sylvia Plath, and captured the world’s imagination in the mid-20th century has begun its final voyage. Leaving Philadelphia, where it has been rusting for decades, the ship, the S.S. United States, is bound this time for the bottom of the sea.

Many supporters — including former passengers who traveled on the ship before it docked largely for good in 1969 — had hoped to see the ship restored and opened to visitors. Instead, it is on its way to become the world’s largest artificial reef, off the coast of the Florida Panhandle.

But first, the 990-foot-long ship, nicknamed the Big U, will make a 14-day journey to Mobile, Ala. There, workers will remove hazardous materials, including the fuel still sitting in its tanks, so the ship can be sunk safely. Because it can no longer move under its own power, five tugboats are taking it out of the Delaware River and Bay on Wednesday. Once the ship is in the open waters of the Atlantic, just one of the tugs will be needed to tow it slowly southward.

The United States, built in the early 1950s, is the largest passenger ship ever built in America, more than 100 feet longer than the Titanic. The naval architect William Francis Gibbs designed it to be a luxury ocean liner in peacetime that could switch to quickly transporting 14,000 troops if needed in wartime. The vessel broke the trans-Atlantic speed record on its maiden voyage, crossing eastbound in three days, 10 hours and 40 minutes at an average of more than 35 knots.

The S.S. United States went on to cross the Atlantic 800 times, carrying the rich and famous as well as immigrants setting out for new lives and middle-class Americans eager to experience Europe. But over time, travelers increasingly chose the speed of air travel over the comfort and mystique of an ocean crossing. The ship was withdrawn from service in 1969.

The journey downriver began at around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, with tugboats guiding the ship under the Walt Whitman Bridge about 10 minutes before low tide, when the clearance would be greatest. Traffic on the bridge was temporarily stopped while the tops of the ship’s towering funnels passed less than 10 feet beneath the roadway.