USS United States reborn

[dgbot]

Here is a good article about a liner that broke records and the people who wish to revive her.

 

 

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/bringing-the-mighty-ss-united-states-back-life-15180

 

David B

[CraigVT]

8 Years later, maybe not going to happen.

 

Thanks for the post David, after seeing a video of the USS United States from the Battleship NJ Museum folks, I was pleased to find this further information. 

 

Unfortunately I think this old girl's days are numbered, I'm not up to date on her status but these drive-by pics taken by my sister aren't real inspiring. 

 

Cheers Mates!

 

From the 2016 article:

April 2024:

 

Does anyone know of any model kits for this ship?

 

 

[ccoyle]

Always sad to a grand old ship neglected and in decline, but I can understand why. They are expensive to fix and expensive to maintain, and there's a lot of resources locked up in all that metal.

[ccoyle]

3 hours ago, CraigVT said:

Does anyone know of any model kits for this ship?

 

Various companies have produced kits in plastic or card. An internet search will turn up quite a few examples, e.g., Revell, Glencoe, JSC (card). The Revell 1/600 kit should still be available new, and the 1/400 JSC kit is still in print.

[Bob Cleek]

5 hours ago, ccoyle said:

there's a lot of resources locked up in all that metal.

Or a lot of razor blades, as the saying goes!  

[Roger Pellett]

There is an old expression about a boat being a hole in the water into which you throw money.  Unfortunately, United States is just a bigger hole to fill.

 

IMHO there are engineering, business, and legal reasons preventing her from sailing again:

 

Business:  The passenger ship business seems to be aimed at two different demographics; at one end those that want to join 4999 others aboard a floating theme park/ 24-7 floating casino and at the other end those wanting a quiet experience aboard a small ship.  United States would seem to appeal to neither of these groups.  The United States, while a big ship carried 1000-2000 passengers. Fares would, therefore, be high, so she would have to tap into the small cruise ship market.  Would ongoing demand be high enough to allow her to book profitable passenger loads?
 

Engineering:  She is a steam ship!  Nobody, operates steamships any more.  She has a 900psi US Navy plant.  The only steam plants operated today in US Navy vessels are in nuclear powered vessels; different animals.  Her boilers, if they can even be brought back to life are equipped to burn bunker c oil, a nasty pollutant that the rest of the world is trying to eliminate from their merchant marine fleets. The state of the art today in marine engineering for passenger carrying vessels seems to be an integrated system where electricity from one source is distributed to both the propulsion system and the system supplying on board hotel services. This also allows use of electric driven trainable pods to improve maneuvering.  Even if it could be brought back to life, United States’ machinery is 70 years out of date.

 

Legal:  She is an American Flagged ship.  The Jones act would require her to be manned with an expensive American crew.  She could be reflagged under a flag of convenience; Liberia, Panama, Bahamas, etc. but would she then be the United States?
 

Better for whoever owns her to admit defeat and as Bob Cleek says turn her into razor blades.

 

Roger
 

 

 

 

[Javelin]

@Roger Pellett, 

 

Although I understand and agree to most of your post, there is one note. Steam Turbines are still used today. Up to 2012, new LNG carriers were still often built with steam turbines. That particular type of vessel required the boil-off gas to be burned in order to control the cargo tank pressures (and not vent it to the atmosphere, which they routinely did in the past). In order to burn that gas, a dual-fuel solution was needed and steam boilers provided just that. Each boiler has/had multiple burners with the choice for each burner to burn either natural gas or fuel. The equipment was generally Japanese, Mitsubishi Boilers and Mitsubishi or Kawasaki turbines. Generally a large turbine (one High Pressure, one Low Pressure and one Astern turbine mounted together)for propulsion and 3 turbo generators for power supply (backed-up by a diesel generator). Another advantage of this set-up was that, when not underway, a steam dump could be used, this steam dump allowed to burn gas, although there was no demand of steam. The steam would then simply be condensed and the energy given to the sea. 

With the advent of the much more efficient dual-fuel piston engines, the steam turbines went out of fashion. In order to get those piston engines working, they did need a way to control the tank pressure and that came in form of reliquefaction (very inefficient energy-wise) and Gas Combustion Units (GCU = basically a big flare in the funnel of those vessels). 

That said, the steam vessels are still around, although they come much cheaper (and therefore not very attractive for the owners) and are only used when the gas tanker market is tight. You also see them increasingly being used as storage units nowadays. 

In the past I actually did some operations with very old US built LNG tankers of the Aquarius class. All in all there are still quite some steam engineers around, although of course nowadays they are increasingly rare. 

 

Of course United States tech is indeed way behind on technology and renewing it would cost an arm and a leg. As you mentioned business and legal wise, it's probably not the best idea to even try this. 

Looks are however deceiving. Her appearance may not be too good now, but given a good sand blasting and coat of paint she'll look the part in no time. 

Perhaps she can be turned into a hotel. I recently slept on SS Rotterdam, an old liner in the port of Rotterdam. Part of the vessel was converted as a hotel, machinery spaces etc. can be visited (paid tour of course) and part of it simply off limits. I assume they try to reduce costs by limiting the amount of the vessel that is used. All in all an economical exercise, how many people do you expect to accommodate at any time and which features do you want to maintain. 

[gak1965]

On 5/3/2024 at 3:23 AM, Javelin said:

I recently slept on SS Rotterdam, an old liner in the port of Rotterdam. Part of the vessel was converted as a hotel, machinery spaces etc. can be visited (paid tour of course) and part of it simply off limits. I assume they try to reduce costs by limiting the amount of the vessel that is used. All in all an economical exercise, how many people do you expect to accommodate at any time and which features do you want to maintain. 

 

How was it? My wife and I went on the Rotterdam for our honeymoon 34 years, and we've been thinking about staying in her if we are ever in the neighborhood.

[Bob Cleek]

Who knows? Perhaps McDonald's or another of the fast-food restaurant chains could buy and restore her to operate burning used deep fat frying oil for fuel! (Don't laugh. I know several guys who are running live steam launches or railroad steam engines on used frying oil, waste restaurant grease, and/or strained used crankcase oil. United States set the Hales Trophy record of three days, ten hours and forty minutes, Southampton to New York. The QE2 is the only transatlantic passenger liner regularly operating at present. Given her top speed, she could cross in about five days, but her scheduled crossings presently take seven days which permits a leisurely crossing with sufficient time to adjust to time zone changes without noticing them, a feature of importance to some passengers. United States could easily cross on a seven-day schedule on a directional rotation schedule in the opposite direction to QE2. 

 

It's been a long time since my father worked for decades as an accountant for American President Lines, (and myself as well in summer jobs during high school and college,) which ran premier passenger liners on the Pacific runs, but while the advent of the jet airliner ultimately knocked the slats out of the seaborne passenger trade, I believe most in the industry were rather surprised to watch the recovery and regeneration of passenger service in the form of "cruise liners" which now likely carry far more passengers than the great transoceanic passenger liners did even in their heydays. Just as there was a market for the Concorde supersonic jet, the Orient Express, and now again in the United States, certain luxury passenger railroad trains, it may be economically feasible to restore and operate the United States in luxury passenger service once again. Such passenger service is, of course, not practical as a primary mode of transportation, particularly for business, but where folks might be interested in "getting there being half the fun," it might attract a certain niche clientele that might make it pay. Who might take that gamble is another matter entirely and, as mentioned above, the Jones Act, once designed to protect American merchant marine jobs, in the end has come to eliminate as many as it once was intended to preserve and may preclude the economic feasibility of such a scheme. Moreover, the vessel is probably well-beyond her "use by" date, although I can't say off the top of my head what that regulation may be these days. Due to her age, I highly suspect she'd require some sort of licensing waiver from MARAD to operate as a U.S. flagged vessel in any event. Lastly, of course, is the fact that she is at present, from all reports, entirely stripped of all equipment, furniture, furnishings and the like and is simply a shell that would have to be entirely rebuilt to present-day standards. 

 

So, no. The dream may be a pleasant one, but I really doubt it could pencil out. If it could, somebody would have done so. In the end, there is really nothing quite so expensive, even to do nothing with. as a large vessel built to sail the seas. A ship that isn't working is a ship that is losing her owners money and that fact often warrants getting rid of them as quickly as possible once they are no longer profitable. 

[Bill Morrison]

The SS United States is not the USS United States.  SS connotes that the ship is privately owned.  USS means that the ship is a national ship that operates in the United States.

 

Bill

[popeye2sea]

14 hours ago, Bill Morrison said:

The SS United States is not the USS United States.  SS connotes that the ship is privately owned.  USS means that the ship is a national ship that operates in the United States.

 

Bill

Further, SS actually stands for Steam Ship as opposed to MV for Motor Vessel, or SV for Sailing Vessel.

Some other designators:

TS  Training Ship

RV  Research Vessel

CS  Cable Ship

MT  Motor Tanker

MY  Motor Yacht

GTS  Gas Turbine Ship

NS  Nuclear Ship

 

Regards,

Henry

[JerryTodd]

USS only applies to COMMISSIONED Naval Vessels of the United States and wasn't officially used until Executive Order 549 in 1907

Edited May 7 by JerryTodd

[Roger Pellett]

Well, in a very broad sense, she has always been effectively USS.  She was conceived by Gibbs in the 1920’s but it took another 25 years or so to get her built.  This required a huge amount of congressional lobbying and justification as a high speed troop transport in time of war.  This allowed her to receive large US Government construction and operating subsidies.  Each year while operating, her owners (United States Lines) prepared a cost analysis separating operating costs associated with her troop ship features.  Most of these involved her propulsion plant.  These were paid by the government.

 

Roger

[Javelin]

21 hours ago, gak1965 said:

 

How was it? My wife and I went on the Rotterdam for our honeymoon 34 years, and we've been thinking about staying in her if we are ever in the neighborhood.

It was fun. Rooms are ok, breakfast was really good. Kids also got a small plastic bottle with a special paper to send home in form of a message in a bottle. 

Location's great too, not too far from the Maritime Museum, and price was good compared to any other hotel as well. In the end we'll have to go back, since we didn't even have enough time for the guided tour. 

 

Not sure if you'll feel the same way if you've seen her in better days in her true element in the past ...

[gak1965]

17 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

Such passenger service is, of course, not practical as a primary mode of transportation, particularly for business, but where folks might be interested in "getting there being half the fun," it might attract a certain niche clientele that might make it pay. Who might take that gamble is another matter entirely and, as mentioned above, the Jones Act, once designed to protect American merchant marine jobs, in the end has come to eliminate as many as it once was intended to preserve and may preclude the economic feasibility of such a scheme. Moreover, the vessel is probably well-beyond her "use by"

There is clearly a (small) market for Transatlantic ships. Indeed, my wife and I are going to do the QM2 crossing from Southampton to NYC just before Christmas this year as a 60th birthday bucket list thing. But, as you say, it's pretty niche, and we had no trouble finding cabins. I get it's winter (well, we depart on Dec 14, so technically fall), but a 7 day voyage with a sheltered balcony was under $1500 (US) per person. Not exactly cheap, but not bad for transportation, room, and board for a week, and it doesn't suggest that high demand is pushing up the price. Nor would I imagine going on a second crossing, so it's niche without a lot of repeats.

 

The SS United States is pretty clearly past her sell by date. If an American (or other) firm wants to muscle into Cunard's market they might as well build a completely new ship. The population that is even aware of her existence is not increasing, and while her lines are pleasing, naval architecture has advanced in the last 73 years. And anyway, the hull of a ship is the cheapest part, there is no real savings to be had reusing it, and probably a major cost penalty to make modern equipment fit into spaces it wasn't designed for. 

 

Regards,

George

[Roger Pellett]

I receive a quarterly magazine from the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. As might be expected published by a university it is heavily slanted towards current issues and  research.

 

Advances in Naval Architecture are often incremental.  Marine Engineering on the other had as undergone a series of distinct changes:

Introduction of Steam Propulsion

Compound Steam Engines

Steam Turbines

Diesel Engines

Unmanned engine rooms/ direct bridge control

Gas Turbines (Naval Vessels)

Nuclear Power (Submarines)

 

Each of these technologies did not emerge fully developed.  For example, the first steam turbines were connected directly to the ships propellers.  A machine that operates best at high speed was attempting to drive one intended to run at low speed.  It took 15-20 years to adopt the geared cross compounded system used by the US Navy during World War II.  The machinery in United States is the end point of this mature steam turbine technology.

 

When I went to school, Marine Engineering involved designing a unique steam plant to fit within the confines of a hull designed by the Naval Architects.  The switch to diesel engines for propulsion of much of the world’s merchant vessel tonnage and gas turbines for naval vessels changed all this.  The Naval Architects sometimes joked that marine engineering had become a “catalog punching job.”
 

Marine Engineering I now back in the news with a lot of questions to be answered.  Among these are:

 How to eliminate residual oil fuels

How to best utilize hydrogen as a fuel

Electric propulsion and hybrid electric propulsion

Even Nuclear merchant ship propulsion and sail assist

 

These ideas are obviously not all applicable to large ships traveling long distances and some are maybe just Pie in the Sky, but the point is that United States’ machinery is seriously out of date and pollution from shipboard commerce is now considered to be a major environmental problem.  Even if her owners could strike a deal with KFC to burn their used frying oil in their boilers, major changes to her machinery would be required with the possibility of completely new power plant.  This alone would probably preclude her return to service.

 

Roger

 

Edited May 8 by Roger Pellett

[Bill Morrison]

When I was stationed aboard the USS Pasadena (SSN 752) as the MDR, my Engineer and I were watching the USCG Eagle sail down the Thames River under sail.  Remembering an old quote from the USS Nautilus, I paraphrased by saying to the Engineer, "Just think! It is possible!  Under way without nuclear power!"  He shook his head and walked away speechless.

 

To add to your list;  The civilian ship Savannah was a nuclear powered cargo ship.  The USN has also commissioned quite a few surface ships that are so powered.

 

Bill

 

[Roger Pellett]

Exactly, my USNavy experience was 4 years as a junior officer working as a Naval Reactors Engineer.  Yes, the famous or infamous “NR.”  All experience was with submarine reactor plants:  S1W, S2W, S3/4W and after Bettis Reactor Engineering School, S5W.  I also spent time at the D1G prototype so am familiar with that plant too.  I was disappointed when cost considerations required abandonment of nuclear surface ships other than the large carriers.   I know little about Savannah’s plant except that it was a pressurized water reactor.

 

There has been a significant development that could change the economics of nuclear ship propulsion;  the “life of the ship” core.   As you know refuelings were costly, complicated, and lengthy and were originally required every couple of years.  The navy now uses technology to produce reactor cores that do not have to be refueled during the vessel’s expected lifetime.

 

While this might cause the navy to eventually take a look at other combatants,  the business model for merchant shipping is a race to the bottom when it comes to cost.  This would preclude hiring the highly educated and trained crews that have and still do man the US Navy’s nuclear powered ships.

 

Roger

Edited May 10 by Roger Pellett

[Bill Morrison]

Roger,

 

My naval experience was 24 years as a Hospital Corpsman, 20 of those years were in submarines. I retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer who turned down a promotion to Master Chief in order to retire. Thank you for your service.

 

Bill

[Roger Pellett]

Bill, thank you for your service!

 

I’m always a little embarassed when people say that to me.  Compared to people of my age slogging through jungles, or serving at sea, my service was more like a (good) Govt. job.

 

aaRoger 

[DARIVS ARCHITECTVS]

On 5/1/2024 at 12:27 PM, Roger Pellett said:

There is an old expression about a boat being a hole in the water into which you throw money.  Unfortunately, United States is just a bigger hole to fill.

 

IMHO there are engineering, business, and legal reasons preventing her from sailing again:

 

Business:  The passenger ship business seems to be aimed at two different demographics; at one end those that want to join 4999 others aboard a floating theme park/ 24-7 floating casino and at the other end those wanting a quiet experience aboard a small ship.  United States would seem to appeal to neither of these groups.  The United States, while a big ship carried 1000-2000 passengers. Fares would, therefore, be high, so she would have to tap into the small cruise ship market.  Would ongoing demand be high enough to allow her to book profitable passenger loads?
 

Engineering:  She is a steam ship!  Nobody, operates steamships any more.  She has a 900psi US Navy plant.  The only steam plants operated today in US Navy vessels are in nuclear powered vessels; different animals.  Her boilers, if they can even be brought back to life are equipped to burn bunker c oil, a nasty pollutant that the rest of the world is trying to eliminate from their merchant marine fleets. The state of the art today in marine engineering for passenger carrying vessels seems to be an integrated system where electricity from one source is distributed to both the propulsion system and the system supplying on board hotel services. This also allows use of electric driven trainable pods to improve maneuvering.  Even if it could be brought back to life, United States’ machinery is 70 years out of date.

 

Legal:  She is an American Flagged ship.  The Jones act would require her to be manned with an expensive American crew.  She could be reflagged under a flag of convenience; Liberia, Panama, Bahamas, etc. but would she then be the United States?
 

Better for whoever owns her to admit defeat and as Bob Cleek says turn her into razor blades.

 

Roger
 

 

 

 

NOBODY operates steam ships anymore?  I was a US Merchant Marine engineering officer, and ran steam ships for years on bunker C.  Bunker C is not as heavy a polluter you think it is.  at 18,500 BTU/lb., it's cheaper and more efficient that diesel at 17,900 BTU/lb.  The trend has been for decades to go diesel, but steam ships are still around.  Steamships are more efficient than diesel in larger ships, such as supertankers.  There certainly are steamships operating today.  The MSC ready reserve ammo ships are steamships.  I ran one in Desert Storm in 1992.   All 8 fast Navy owned sealift TAKR ships in MSC are also steam, and have the largest marine boilers in the world, holding 36 tons of water each, and they are twin shaft and capable of 36 knots, probably the fastest cargo ships in the world, and sailed 3 of them.

[Roger Pellett]

My “Nobody” was an exaggeration.  Of course there are steam ships still operating today.  There’s about half a dozen still sailing here on the lakes although one fleet (Interlake) has been converting their’s to diesel.  And was earlier pointed out to me, there are special situations such as LNG vessels where Steam make sense by utilizing otherwise vented natural gas.  If I remember correctly, the ships in the MSC reserve fleet include high speed steamships “inherited” from US Container operators who found them to be uneconomical.

 

The bunker C comment is that of Marine Engineering experts at the University of Michigan.  It’s cheaper because it’s a residual fuel left over from the refining process. As such, it has a lot of undesirable pollutants, notably sulfur.

 

A factor not discussed is engine room manning.  World War II Navy ships had large crews, and I would assume that this would include those in the engine rooms and fire rooms.  25 years ago, there was a move by two Great Lakes Steamship operators, the ex US Steel Great Lakes Fleet and Interlake to automate the 1950’s vintage steam plants in their ships.  I had some very minor involvement in this effort.  I met one of Interlake’s vessels when it arrived at Two Harbors, MN to load ore in order to figure out the piping changes that would be required.  I believe that one ex US Steel Ship, The Calaway? was converted.  Interlake, chose instead to convert to diesel.  Great Lakes vessels have one fire room and one engine room.  United States has several of each.  Her operators would, therefore, be faced with either a huge automation project or sailing with a large engine room/ fire room crew.

 

With the exception of special situation vessels, the question is would anyone invest a huge amount of money to build a new steamship or revive a 1950’s era one sailing under US Flag rules to compete with foreign flagged passenger vessels.  I don’t think so.

 

Roger

[Javelin]

15 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

 

With the exception of special situation vessels, the question is would anyone invest a huge amount of money to build a new steamship or revive a 1950’s era one sailing under US Flag rules to compete with foreign flagged passenger vessels.  I don’t think so.

I think that about sums it up. 

Cruise vessels nowadays do carry larger engine room crews (because also the side jobs like sewage plant, technical issues in cabins etc are part of their jobs), but not anything like on United States. 

On modern merchant ships, notably the LNG steam ships, we had an engine room crew of around 7, mostly composed of: 

2nd Engineer

2 x 3rd Engineer 

4th Engineer 

(apprentice engineer, optional)

Fitter

Wiper 

Oiler

 

Chief Engineer is an office job, much like Captain nowadays, so I'm not considering them really as part of the engine room operating crew. 

Of course these were fully automated engine rooms, unmanned during the night. Full of sensors with linked alarms that wake up the duty engineer if required.