The coast of Florida is about to be home to the world’s largest-ever artificial reef, and it’s going to be made out of a 75-year-old, 1,000-foot-long ship.
It’s a poetic end for the SS United States, which sailed between 1952 and 1969 and was the fastest ocean liner to ever cross the Atlantic. The ship is currently sailing its last voyage around the coast of Florida (you can see a live tracker here) en route to Mobile, Alabama, where it will spend a year getting cleaned and prepped to be dropped about 20 nautical miles off of Florida’s Destin-Fort Walton Beach.
Today, conservationists are increasingly exploring the creation of artificial reefs to combat the damaging impacts of pollution and climate change, using everything from old subway cars and voting boxes to habitats made from human ashes for the structures. And, as it turns out, a decommissioned ship has a few key qualities that make it a prime candidate for reef conversion.
Why we need artificial reefs
Despite covering less than 1% of the total ocean floor, coral reefs support an estimated 25% of all marine life, meaning they’re central to preserving ocean biodiversity. However, record global ocean temperatures have caused a worldwide coral bleaching event (the second in the past 10 years), which occurs when warmer-than-normal conditions disrupt a symbiotic algae relationship that keeps coral alive, causing them to die off over time.
Since 2023, mass bleaching events have been confirmed in 53 countries, territories, and local economies, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rising levels of ocean pollution are similarly threatening the health of global reefs.
While the only long-term solutions to coral die-offs are limiting ocean pollution and climate change, artificial reefs are one way to mitigate the loss in the meantime. Artificial reefs can either be purpose-made, as in the case of NYC’s “Living Breakwaters” or Rotterdam’s Lego-like blocks; or made from repurposed materials, like decommissioned tugboats, ferries, and military tanks.
What makes a giant ship a good artificial reef?
Plenty of structures could theoretically be made into reefs, but there are a number of factors that make some options better than others.
Daniel Sheehy is an environmental consultant who’s been studying artificial reefs for more than 50 years. In a 2022 interview with Fast Company, he shared a few considerations that go into their creation.
To start, federal and state regulations determine how conservationists can construct, design, and regulate new artificial reefs in order to ensure that they don’t inadvertently harm the surrounding environment. One way that might happen is if an artificial reef is prone to breaking apart and decomposing quickly—which, Sheehy shared, was the case when many of New York’s old Brightliner subway cars were retired to the ocean floor but quickly disintegrated when spot-welding caused their steel frames to come apart.
Properly welded steel is generally considered to be safe for reefs, but other materials—like rubber, fiberglass, wood, and plastic—have been found to deteriorate quickly in saltwater and are now banned for artificial reefs.
Beyond its material construction, Sheehy shared, a thriving artificial reef also needs a large surface area (to allow for plenty of marine species to make a new habitat) and a sizable weight (to prevent the reef from moving out of its designated site.) Both of these elements make a massive ocean liner a fairly strong choice: The SS United States, specifically, clocks in at 990 feet long and weighs around 50,000 tons. Other ship-turned-reef projects, like the USS Oriskany, which was sunk in 2006 near Pensacola, Florida, have proven successful over time.
Before the SS United States is actually sent to its new permanent residence, it will be thoroughly cleaned of contaminants including any fuels and oils, paint residue, and leftover floatables or debris. According to the official Destin-Fort Walton Beach website, the ship is also slated to receive an immersive land-based museum to document its history.
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