Daily Press Story on the Big U!
rhwest...@yahoo.com
Will Norwegian Cruise Lines bring a grand, old ship to its former
glory? Boosters hope so, but that remains to be seen.
BY PETER DUJARDIN
247-4749
July 23, 2006
NEWPORT NEWS -- It still holds the record for the fastest ocean liner
to cross the Atlantic, and it ranks as the quickest vessel, period, on
the westbound route.
Its sleek form remains a thing of beauty as it sits moored to an old
Philadelphia pier, off Interstate 95.
And its two funnels, with their red, white and blue faded paint, rank
among the largest ever installed on a ship. But 37 years after the SS
United States last sailed the seas under its own power, and four years
after Norwegian Cruise Line bought the ship, a key question remains:
Can the grand vessel ever make a comeback?
Norwegian Cruise Line, or NCL, which bought the old Newport News-built
vessel in 2003, won't reveal its plans for the ship, which likely would
need hundreds of millions of dollars to refurbish.
"We continue to conduct a full feasibility study that has not yet been
concluded," said NCL spokeswoman Alejandra Serna.
But in May, the chairman of the company that owns NCL gave boosters
hope, saying "the restoration of the United States" would be the
company's next project, after finishing off two planned cruise ships.
Built by Newport News Shipbuilding and delivered in 1952, the ship was
made with speed in mind. That's because the vessel, much of it paid for
by the Pentagon, wasn't just your typical ocean liner.
Though it only carried about 2,000 passengers normally, it could be
transformed into a military transport that could bring 14,000 troops to
anywhere in the world in 10 days.
With lots of aluminum in its structure, the 990-foot United States was
only 53,329 tons, about half that of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier of
today. But it has eight steam boilers and four turbines that produced
242,000 horsepower. The vessel was said to have a maximum speed of 42
knots, with 23 knots in reverse, according to the book "Newport News
Shipbuilding: The First Century," by William Tazewell.
"Even at rest, the ship seemed to strain at the leash," John
Maxtone-Graham wrote of the United States in "The Only Way to Cross," a
book about the great ocean liners. On its maiden voyage in 1952, the SS
United States broke the Queen Mary's speed record, set 14 years before.
The United States crossed the North Atlantic in three days, 10 hours
and 40 minutes, an average speed of 35.6 knots. A catamaran ferry,
stopping for fuel along the way, broke that record in 1990, though the
SS United States still holds the record for an ocean liner.
But even if Norwegian Cruise Line brings the SS United States back to
life, there are some debates on the best way to do so.
Should it be turned into a museum?
A hotel and restaurant spot, a la the original Queen Mary in Long
Beach, Calif.?
Brought back to life as a cruise ship that actually sails the seas?
In what its many boosters term a tragic event, the ship was stripped of
many of its onboard parts in a government auction in 1984. Many of the
ship's fittings now can be found on eBay.
Some glass panels are on display at museums, including some at the
Mariners Museum in Newport News. Its silverware and flatware are
featured at a restaurant in North Carolina.
Still, the hull of the ship is intact. Walls between the accommodation
rooms are gone, but the main structural bulkheads and decks are said to
be in decent shape.
Yet even if it comes back as a working cruise ship, it won't steam
around the globe using the same powerful engines of old.
The turbine system on the SS United States is an extremely inefficient
one, burning 800 tons of fuel a day. If Norwegian Cruise Line decides
to put the ship back in service, it would almost assuredly do so with a
modern diesel system.
But only one of the two engine rooms would likely be needed, and there
are opposing view on what should be done with the other one.
Robert Westover, the president and founder of the SS United States
Foundation, first became interested in the ship as a boy when he built
a toy replica of it. The model, which Westover still keeps in his
Northern Virginia living room, went only to the water line. That was
because the ship's engine and propulsion specifications, which were
still a state secret.
Because of the speed record, the SS United States' engines are a key
part of the ship's history, Westover points out. And as such, he said,
the other engine room should be kept as a testimony to its past.
Westover also wants Norwegian Cruise Line to keep the outside look of
the ship essentially intact. While his group is not opposed to
modernizing the ship, it's against putting multi-level decks on the
outside of the ship that would cause it to lose its classic lines as it
cuts through the water.
Moreover, Westover doesn't want NCL to cut out the smaller portals and
add large windows with large views of the sea. Though that might be
what modern cruise ship passengers expect today, Westover said he
believes NCL could succeed with a niche market of passengers that wants
to ride on a ship that feels like the transatlantic cruisers of old.
"We don't want them to gut the ship of all its historical integrity and
essentially just use the brand name," Westover says. "They could
certainly take this ship and do the responsible preservation work that
needs to be done."
Two years ago, however, Westover's group stopped communicating
regularly with Norwegian Cruise Line when he said it became clear, from
statements the company made, that the ship might be radically altered.
Shortly thereafter, some foundation members formed an offshoot group,
the SS United States Conservancy. They believed they would have more
influence on what would happen to the ship if they maintained the
relationship with the cruise liner company. Unlike the Foundation, the
Conservancy would be okay with NCL gutting out both engine rooms and
putting one of them to a different use.
"We're trying to move forward with preserving the ship," said Richard
Rabbett, a member of the Conservancy's board of directors. "All of that
is revenue generating space, for cargo carrying, stores, food, water.
It seems very unlikely to keep the engine room around just for the very
small fraction of people who want to go down there and tour a defunct
engineering space."
The Conservancy leadership is also not as purist as the Foundation
about many other possible changes to the ship, including adding new
exterior decks and expanded windows.
Rabbett said the Conservancy does, however, want NCL to keep the big
funnels intact - perhaps using the inside of the one not being used for
a restaurant or other entertainment space. It wants to keep the old
coloring schemes - and not paint the ship, say, white or green.
And it wants to make sure other changes - such as new exterior decks -
are done in a dignified manner. And it hopes some special sections of
any new incarnation of the SS United States keep the look and feel of
the original.
"Everyone would know it's the SS United States," from the outside,
Rabbett said. "We're okay with modern cruising standards, but with a
design nod to the past."
Williamsburg resident Robert J. Whitley, who started at the Newport
News shipyard as a machinist apprentice in 1951, said he made many of
the SS United States' turbine blades.
Five decades later, he still remembers the sound of the whistle, which
would be tested at lunchtime. "Just like a mother knows her baby's cry,
I know that whistle," he said. "It was just a heavy, mellow sound that
was unique to that vessel."
But as for renovating the vessel, Whitley doesn't see the need. Better,
he said, to use that money on cancer research. "It's time to look
forward," he said. "The history books will remember it."