The SS United States is going to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico a day early. Okaloosa County, Florida, moved the sinking of the record-setting ocean liner from Thursday to today, Wednesday, Nov. 11, because of the weather. Crews are set to begin deployment at 1 p.m. Central, which is 2 p.m. Eastern and 11 a.m. Pacific. The county has not said how long the ship will take to go under after that.
The county's tourism office, Destin-Fort Walton Beach, is streaming the operation live on its YouTube channel under the title "Diving into History: The SS UNITED STATES Deployment." The stream was already running Wednesday morning, with about 19,000 people watching at 10:15 a.m. Pacific.
Edit USA's earlier guide to the plan, published when the date was still Nov. 12, is here.
Why the date moved
The National Weather Service's forecast for Gulf waters 20 to 60 nautical miles off the Okaloosa County coast called for northwest winds of 15 to 20 knots and seas of 2 to 3 feet on Thursday. For Wednesday it showed winds of 5 to 10 knots and seas of 1 foot or less.
Calmer water also makes for an easier trip for the boats heading out to watch, and anyone on the water has to follow instructions from the safety crews around the site.
Where the ship will rest
The 990-foot liner is going down about 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin-Fort Walton Beach to become what the county says will be the world's largest artificial reef. Okaloosa County bought it in 2024 and had it towed to Mobile, Alabama, where crews spent more than a year stripping out fuel, wiring and other material before the federal reef permit was renewed.
The United States still holds the record for the fastest Atlantic crossing by a passenger liner. Its first eastbound trip in July 1952 took 3 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes. The ship was retired in 1969 and spent nearly three decades tied up in Philadelphia while one plan after another to restore it fell through.
