"Jcarr" (jcarr)
02/20/2015 at 16:58 • Filed to: Shiplopnik
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"Jcarr" (jcarr)
02/20/2015 at 16:58 • Filed to: Shiplopnik | 19
| 27 |
Completed in 1940 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, the SS America was a 722-foot, 35,000-ton displacement ocean liner. Powered by four double reduction geared steam turbines, she was capable of carrying 1,200 passengers.
Sponsored by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, the America was launched on August 31, 1939. From 1940 to 1941 she sailed as the flagship of the United States Line.
As war in Europe spread it became inevitable that the United States would get involved in some capacity and on May 28, 1941, the America was called into service by the Navy as a troop transport. She sailed to Norfolk and after conversion, was renamed USS West Point.
America as the USS West Point
The conversion by the Navy increased her passenger capacity to over 7,500 and she spent the better part of the next 5 years ferrying troops and refugees to and from locations all over the globe. This work earned her numerous service and campaign medals.
Following WWII she was transferred back to civilian service and her name was changed back to SS America. She sailed various transatlantic routes until 1964 when she returned to Newport News to be scrapped.
Before that could happen, America was purchased by the Greek Chandris Group and renamed Australis. Her passenger capacity was increased to over 2,200 and she began to regularly sail an emigrant route from Southhampton, England to Australia and New Zealand. This continued for 13 years until she was laid up at Timaru, New Zealand in December of 1977.
Australis was purchased by the New York-based Venture Cruises in 1978 and renamed America. Her first cruise under this ownership was disastrous as her refit had been hastily performed and was not complete by the time she left port. Conditions aboard were so bad that a group of passengers forced the captain to turn back before America could pass out of sight of the Statue of Liberty. The rest of her career with Venture Cruises went just as poorly as she was impounded for non-payment of debts and miserably failed an inspection by the US Public Health Service. In late 1978 the US District Court ordered America to be sold at auction.
America was once again purchased by Chandris and this time renamed Italis. Chandris removed her forward funnel as part of a plan to modernize her silhouette that never saw completion. Italis served in a variety of roles for Chandris for the next year before being laid up again in September of 1979.
America languished for the next decade and half, changing hands and names a number of times. Finally, in 1993, she was sold yet again and plans were made to tow her to Phuket, Thailand, where she would be come a floating luxury hotel.
Renamed the American Star, she was prepared for trans-oceanic towing and left Greece in December of 1993 behind a Ukrainian tug. Only a few weeks into the 3-month operation the tow lines between American Star and the tug were broken in a thunderstorm. Attempts to reattached them failed and on January 17, 1993, the crew aboard her were rescued by helicopter, leaving the once-proud vessel adrift in the Atlantic. The next day she ran aground off of the western coast of Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands.
Within 48 hours of her grounding, America's hull broke in two just aft of her second funnel. In July 1994 she was declared a total loss and two years later her stern collapsed into the sea. The bow section held on quite a while longer, gradually leaning and collapsing year-by-year. The haunting sight of the gigantic vessel slowly rusting away above the water line made for a popular tourist attraction and photo opportunity.
In April 2007 the bow finally gave way completely and fell into the sea, bringing the story of the SS America to a sad end.
Satellite image as of 2008 shows what little of the wreck is left.
sm70- why not Duesenberg?
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:07 |
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That is sad.
PS9
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:08 |
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SS and America is an unlucky combo it seems. :(
HammerheadFistpunch
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:11 |
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Great story, I love to hear about these long life seagoing ships. Transatlantic ships are so much prettier than modern cruise ships. My first time on a big ship was the SS Rotterdam cruising to Alaska when I was 12 with my grandmother. Good times.
Short-throw Granny Shifter is 2 #blessed 2b stressed
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:11 |
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Cool photos. Seeing the first on, I immediately thought of the SS United States, which has been sitting in Philadelphia harbor for as long as I can remember.
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sm70- why not Duesenberg?
> PS9
02/20/2015 at 17:12 |
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It's starting to list, too.
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Jcarr
> PS9
02/20/2015 at 17:13 |
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Mercedes Streeter
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:13 |
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There are a couple tribute videos to the SS America on YouTube. They're set to Nightwish's "Sleeping Sun". I'd link them, but work has YouTube blocked.
Last time I jerked a tear about a ship, it was the Titanic!
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Jcarr
> Short-throw Granny Shifter is 2 #blessed 2b stressed
02/20/2015 at 17:14 |
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They were sister ships with the United States line, I believe. I think the United States was bigger and faster, though.
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Jcarr
> HammerheadFistpunch
02/20/2015 at 17:16 |
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Agreed, there is a certain elegance to ships of that era is just isn't there with the floating skyscrapers of today.
ranwhenparked
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:24 |
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They weren't sisters at all, which was kind of a problem for United States Lines. The SS United States is much larger (53,330 gross tons vs 26,454 as America was measured under US registry and 990 ft. long vs. 722 ft.) and significantly faster (32 knots service/38 knots max vs. 22.5 kn).
United States also had a larger passenger capacity: 1,928 vs. 1,202.
United States Lines attempted to use the pair as running mates on the transatlantic route, but United States ' higher speed and larger capacity meant that it was pretty much impossible to maintain a regular schedule.
There were plans off and on during the 1950s to build a proper sister ship to United States , which would have probably taken the America name, but it never got done.
Passengers generally considered America to be the better ship though. They were both designed by the same naval architect - William Francis Gibbs, but America was done more like the grand European liners of the '30s, with lavishly decorated Art Deco interiors. United States was in a much more toned-down postwar MidCentury Modern style and was significantly plainer. Partly due to changing tastes, partly due to Gibbs' mania for fire safety, and partly due to the US Government's requirement that the ship be designed for fast and easy conversion to a troop transport.
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ranwhenparked
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:35 |
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Thanks for writing this up. The end of America / American Star was really, really sad. The ship was preserved so intact for so long, by 1994 it was basically the only prewar ocean liner still left in original and operational condition. It was a perfect candidate for preservation as a hotel ship, and then, gone.
There were allegations that the new owners had never intended on using the ship at all and that the whole thing was an insurance scam. American Star was insured for far more than her scrap value and purchase price, and the decision to tow through the Strait of Gibraltar rather than through the Suez Canal were seen as highly suspect.
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Mercedes Streeter
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 17:39 |
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Agreed!!! While modern ship interiors may be elegant, nothing beats the overall beauty of the ships of the past. It's like modern ship designers aren't even trying with the exterior...
Something I'd love to see is like a real life version of the Poseidon ship. Still as large as a skyscraper, but doesn't look like a floating box.
This should be the opening scene from the movie (can't confirm, YouTube blocked):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD78hAyf4NE
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Jcarr
> ranwhenparked
02/20/2015 at 17:41 |
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My pleasure (although I mostly just cribbed together images and paraphrased history from other sites). The Titanic started my fascination with old ocean liners and when I stumbled upon the story of the America I was captivated.
I had it on my bucket list to travel to Fuerteventura and see her so I was greatly disappointed when she collapsed before I could get there.
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Jcarr
> Mercedes Streeter
02/20/2015 at 17:43 |
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Yep, that's it. I'm intrigued by the plans to build a replica Titanic.
Alex B
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 18:00 |
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Great, informative write up. I was unaware about the extenssive background of the SS America! Kinda crazy how long it stayed in service...
Jonathan Harper
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 18:05 |
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Cool sorry, thanks!
If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Alex B
02/20/2015 at 19:15 |
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That's actually not uncommon for ships.
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Alex B
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
02/20/2015 at 19:21 |
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I know, but i think this still takes the cake for most times a ship has changed hands and been repurposed. I know the RMS Olympic was used as an army ship for a spell...
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If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Alex B
02/20/2015 at 19:37 |
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Have you ever heard of the Andrea Doria ? Well, the ship she collided with, the Stockholm, was launched in 1946 and is still in service today as the MV Azores , having gone by 10 different names over the years.
Many cargo ships are the same way, cargo lines would rather sell the ship to a smaller operation than to pay lots of money to have a ship properly decommissioned and broken.
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ranwhenparked
> Jcarr
02/20/2015 at 20:30 |
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Me too, really wanted to make it over there. I figured there was time, since it was like that for well over a decade, then, boom, collapsed and it was all over.
The maritime industry is such an important part of American life and history, and it tends to get unfairly ignored in pop culture, so anything that can give some focus to it is appreciated. For a brief period of time, the United States did have a few ocean liners that really could rival the best of what the European lines had to offer, and that isn't anything to sneeze at.
Blake Noble
> Jcarr
02/21/2015 at 01:25 |
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Excellent write up! Nothing to add, except I enjoyed it. Good work!
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Jcarr
> Blake Noble
02/21/2015 at 11:25 |
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Thanks!
Jagvar
> Jcarr
10/11/2015 at 23:23 |
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I’m fortunate to own a piece of this ship’s history: the 1936 design draft by naval architecture firm Gibbs & Cox. I’ve since framed it, and it hangs in my study now. These were the first plans drawn of the SS America, before she had even officially been named.
Dunnik
> Jcarr
10/12/2015 at 02:18 |
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A sad end for a proud ship.
Funny how it was renamed for WWII, because the headline“AMERICA SUNK” would be giving the enemy free propaganda points. Same reason Hitler renamed the pocket battleship Deutschland.
John Pierce
> ranwhenparked
10/12/2015 at 03:11 |
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I believe in the top photo of this article, you can catch a glimpse of the SS United States in the upper right, in the background. Both vessels were built at Newport News, although a dozen years and a world war apart.
The Big U spent several years laid up in Hampton Roads, VA in the 80s, where I got to see her from afar while I was working on a barge in a nearby shipyard.
desertdog5051
> Jcarr
10/12/2015 at 04:21 |
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Fascinating. Sad. Thanks.
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Jcarr
> Jagvar
10/12/2015 at 10:05 |
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That’s awesome! Great piece of history.