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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 98.232.181.201 (talk) at 05:12, 18 January 2010 (→January 2010 updates). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Photo

This page really needs at least one photograph. It is probable that the publicity photographs have passed into public domain (assuming the United States Lines didn't renew their copyright, which seems the likely scenario, given that the line folded in 1969). So if anyone has a postcard to scan, I think it could be used. --Nycto 17:39, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

It's a shame that such an elegant ship has essentially been left to decay. While it seems to have been preserved to a certain extent, I can definitely see signs of neglect in the pictures. Douglasnicol 13:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Asbestos removal

Yeah, i heard this removal was done at Sebastopol, in the Crimea. Initially it had towed to Turkey where they had to pay $2 millions, but Turkey government blocked the removal due to asbestos-related health issue. The thing is, the whole thing was to be done outside US just because they wanted it cheap.

44.7 knots?

I've seen this figure quoted a couple of places, but it seems completely impossible. It should require at least twice, perhaps as much as three times the power the ship is capable of to make 44.7 knots, and it would be impossible to deliver that much power to the water. TomTheHand 19:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, because that would be impossible. Some quick and dirty calculations show that it would take in the vicinity of 450,000 hp to push a ship of that size to 40 knots. The amount of power required to move a ship faster increases exponentially, so while 248,000 hp can realistically move the ship at 35-36 knots, it would take a ridiculous amount of power to go 40 knots. Moreover, 44.7 knots is greater than the hull speed of a 990 foot vessel. It should be impossible to go that fast in a displacement hull vessel no matter how much power you apply.
Setting aside the impossibility of it, her trip was three and a half days long, so she could have maxed out at 36 to perhaps 37 knots and maintained that speed for nearly the entire time, averaging out to 35.5 knots at the end.
Compare this ship to an Iowa class battleship, which was optimized for speed. The two ships were of similar displacement and dimensions, and United States is not that much more powerful. The Iowas maxed out around 33 knots. The United States could not have gone over 33% faster with just 15% more power. TomTheHand 02:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe your calculations; I wonder where those numbers come from? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Probably from the same guys who rate USS Enterprise (CVN-65) at 40 or even 50 knots :-) The exactness of the figure makes it even more believable. I did some Googling around, and a lot of web sites quote the "44.7 knots" figure, including ssunitedstates.org. That should make me doubt myself, but 44.7 knots is too far outside the realm of plausibility. I think it's a rumor that kept getting passed around more and more, and it probably exploded in popularity when someone decided to make up an exact figure. A number of sites even say that she could travel "in excess of" 44.7 knots. TomTheHand 12:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was just thinking that a shoddy mph-to-knots conversion could have had something to do with it, but I ran the numbers and it still seems iffy to me. If she made 44.7 mph and someone assumed it was knots and published it that way, it would still mean that she was capable of nearly 39 knots. I'm not sure that this is possible. Maybe, just maybe, if her engines were designed to be capable of a 20% overload like those of the Iowas... and she was running empty, just for the purpose of a top speed trial... 38 knots seems achievable. 39 would take about 15% more power, though. Note that I acknowledge that this is all just original research, and I'm not suggesting that we put my 38-39 knot calculation on the page, but I do think we should remove 44.7 knots. TomTheHand 12:13, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting stuff, and a very funny story. I'll remove the 44.7 knot figure from the page. TomTheHand 18:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think a little bit about the fib would be worthwhile, since the number has been frequently bandied about, and someone is sure to re-assert it. By the way, I just picked up "S.S. United States: Fastest Ship in the World" (ISBN 156311824-6). It's quite interesting, and delves quite a bit into the pre-history of the ship. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:00, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, since the figure is so often thrown around. I'm a little busy with other projects, so I'm not really up for writing about it right now. Would you care to take a shot at it? TomTheHand 19:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Feel free to clean it up; I'm certainly no "NA&ME" boy. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 19:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great sleuthing! You drove a stake through the heart of that one. But as long as we're on the subject of her power: The page now reads "the United States featured the most powerful engine installation in a merchant marine vessel." In fact was there any vessel of any kind up to that time with more power? And have there been any more powerful vessels of any type since then with more power except for post-war US carriers? Kablammo 13:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, interesting question. The Forrestal class aircraft carriers had a 280,000 shp plant, but they were about two years after the United States. The previous class of carrier, the Midways, had a 212,000 shp plant. That's the same figure as the Iowa class battleships, so perhaps they shared the same plant. I can't think of any ships other than supercarriers that are more powerful, and I honestly can't think of any other ship that large that's capable of similar speeds. There are larger cruise ships and merchant vessels, but they're all in the 20 knot speed range, which requires far less power. The closest thing I could think of was perhaps the Soviet/Russian Kuznetsov class aircraft carriers, but apparently they had a 200,000 shp plant. The cancelled Soviet nuclear-powered carrier project would probably have surpassed the SS United States in power, but of course wouldn't have been a merchant vessel.
I'm thinking that the only reason a merchant vessel would need that much power is to go well over 30 knots, and the only reason a merchant vessel would need to go over 30 knots is to carry passengers in an era where air travel is expensive... so there would be no merchant vessels more powerful than United States. So as far as I can tell, the answer to both of your questions is "no." The United States was the most powerful vessel in the world when she was built, and the only vessels more powerful since are American supercarriers. Cool.TomTheHand 14:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I thought. Both the Lexington and Saratoga (CVs 2 and 3) could generate power far in excess of their nominal ratings, but did not approach 248,000. Forrestal actually was rated at 260,000, not much more than United States, but her sisters were 280,000. Kablammo 14:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First thing, I'm not sure where to edit that table, but the units on the operating pressure for the boiler(s) are a little confused. lbf/in2 or psi is fine, but in3 is a unit for volume, unless that is what the creator of that table was going for (but then why the SI units MPa included?). Second, being a merchant marine engineer, I can comment that merchant vessels have steered clear of power because it usually detracts from efficiency. Most shipbuilders and ship's main propulsion engine builders are more concerned with fuel efficiency, and most recently, combustion gas quality. Which is why most modern merchant marine vessels (of whatever nation and flag) are usually constructed with large slow-speed two-stroke engines, always turbocharged, and often with an exhaust gas boiler (and with other waste heat users such as fresh water distillers that use the main engine cooling water as the primary heat source). In fact, I believe the United States was the only country still clinging to steam ships well into the OPEC crisis (probably because we had so much invested). Most other countries had already switched over to diesel engines, which is one of the reasons why you don't see many American shipbuilders anymore (that and globalization have allowed countries without the United States "union" problem to build ships cheaper and faster (such as Korea's Hyundai Samho "cookie-cutter" shipyard in Mokpo, S. Korea).--Hengineer 11:28, 16 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There got to be a little misstake concerning the service speed conversions: At the moment ist reads here 30 knots being 41.4 mph or 66.7 km/h. But 30 knots wold be 34.5 mph or 55,6 km/h. Which one is incorrect, the conversion or the 30 knots? --Gdf36 (talk) 14:00, 8 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If the ship were altered to have a bulbous bow like a modern cruise ship/liner, would that help raise the possible top speed? --98.232.181.201 (talk) 05:09, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Future

"SS UNITED STATES: Star Cruises' chairman, Tan Sri LIM Kok Thay, announced during the christening of PRIDE OF HAWAI'I, that the UNITED STATES would be coming back as the fourth ship for Norwegian Cruise Lines America. Her refurbishment will follow or concur with the building of two more ships for the NCL international program. No further details were announced." [[2]] Ready for prime time, or too speculative? Kablammo 02:04, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of wood

The text states:

Mindful that during World War II U.S. aircraft carriers, with wooden flight decks, tended to catch fire more readily than steel-decked British carriers . . .

led her designers to exclude the use of wood. But there any evidence that this really had anything to do with Gibbs' known obsession with making the liner fireproof? Frank Braynard in his biography of Gibbs, By Their Works Ye Shall Know Them, states it was rather influenced by photographs of the burning Empress of Britain. And of course the Morro Castle disaster must have been well-known to him. Unless support is provided for the quote above I propose to delete it. (The statement can also be challenged on a factual basis-- while armoured-deck British carriers were better able to resist bomb damage than American carriers, are there any examples of American carriers actually catching fire because of wooden decks?) Kablammo 23:39, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The British fleet carriers ((HMS Illustrious etc.) were designed in the anticipation of aerial attack by land-based bombers (the expected area of operations included the Mediterranean, most of which was within range of the heavier land-based aircraft of any likely enemy) and so the 'modern' fleet carriers had a 3-inch armoured flight deck, this being considered impervious to the average size of aerial bomb then in use (~500lb or so) The use of an armoured deck led to this deck being designed-in as the main 'strength' deck, i.e., part of the ship that carried structural loads, an integral part of the hull. Other carriers had the flight deck as an 'add-on' to the ship, that is to say, the flight deck wasn't essential to the structural integrity of the ship, being in most cases, just a (usually wooden in the USN's case) non-loadbearing deck built on to the hull.
The armoured flight deck design itself was severely tested in the Mediterrnean, Illustrious herself being subjected to constant attacks by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica and was at times, badly damaged, however she survied attacks that would almost certainly have sunk any other type of carrier.
When the British Pacific Fleet was formed to participate in the Pacific Theater, the modern Fleet (armoured) carriers were included and several were subjected to more than one Kamikaze attack during the Battle of Okinawa. With a couple of exceptions, the damage cause by these attacks was not serious, the usual result being a dent in the deck itself, which, after any fires were put out, was then filled-in with normal quick-drying builder's cement and allowed to set. This took several hours, but flying-off could then resume. The result of this was that no RN carrier was put out of action for more than a few hours by Kamikaze attack.
The USN's carriers fared rather worse. The usual result of a Kamikaze hit was the aircraft piercing the (wooden) flight deck and then exploding within the interior of the ship, often amongst the already inflammable aircraft stored on the hangar deck. This caused extensive fires which had a ready supply of additional fuel (the wooden flight deck) overhead, which, if not leading to the loss of the vessel itself, required retiring from the action (aircraft can not be flown-off and landed-on a burning or holed deck) and the repair facilites of a dockyard.
Because of this, and their noticable lack of effect on the British carriers, the Kamikaze force were told to avoid attacking any carrier with two lifts (deck elevators - British carriers carried two, USN carriers three) and only attack carriers with three lifts. The RN noticed this and painted the outline of a third (centre) lift on the decks of their carriers, thus attracting-back the Kamikaze attacks and taking the pressure of the vulnerable USN carriers - at one point, due to so many USN carriers retiring 'hurt', the BPF provided almost all of the air cover for the Okinawa landings, although this is rarely mentioned.
As regards the preference for not using wood in the SS United States I suspect that it was not so much due to it being a fire risk as-such, but that if a fire DID occur, the results could be far worse than if the ship was entirely metal. Ian Dunster 12:46, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is worth noting, that since the British carriers have their deck as an integral part of the ship, after WWII, some of the vessels were badly warped by damage, however minor, to the deck. Whereas, the US carriers were more adaptable in that respect. Douglasnicol 17:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have both confirmed what I have read elsewhere. In RN carriers the armoured flight deck was part of the hull girder. While harder to pierce, it was also harder to repair once damaged. In USN carriers the flight deck was part of the superstructure; easy to pierce and easy to repair. But the danger to USN carriers was not the combustible flight deck (fires there were easy to extinguish) but the fuel and ordinance stored below them. That is why, for example, Princeton was lost (and it was fires that eventually claimed other carriers which were torpedoed), and that is what threatened Franklin and Bunker Hill. There were many instances of fires on US flight decks (fuel tanks breaking loose and bad landings) which were promptly put out without lengthy disruptions to flight operations. So to bring it back to SS United States: Gibbs wanted to make the ship survivable in the event of damage, and as part of that prohibited flammable materials to the extent possible. He was well-known for his concern with fire (he designed the FDNY's Fire Fighter fireboat, the most powerful in the world) and was influenced by news photographs of Empress of Britain on fire. But I have seen nothing indicating that wooden flight decks on aircraft carriers had anything to do with the design of United States. Kablammo 22:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem on SS United States Page-wrong link

I am new to Wikipedia and am not sure how to correct this problem. The page for the united states has a link to the word Galley when discussing the ships Kitchens. It is not linked to that however it goes to an article on Roman Galleys.

Fixed. Kablammo 19:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Steaming astern

Does this phrase have a special nautical meaning? Why is the "steaming astern" speed so much less than the cruising speed?

Steaming astern means going backwards. I can think of a couple of possible reasons why it'd be much slower. First, the ship is much less hydrodynamically efficient going backwards; modern ships are pointy at the front and more blunt in back.
Second, there's the issue of how to reverse the thrust at the propellers. Steam turbines (the kind of engines the United States had) can't be run backwards if I remember correctly, so an alternative must be found. There are two solutions that I'm aware of, and I'm not sure what the United States did. I think some ships were equipped with a separate, smaller set of reverse turbines for steaming astern; these would be considerably less powerful and so the ship would be much slower. Another way that some modern ships deal with the issue is with variable pitch propellers. Such propellers can adjust the angle of their blades for maximum efficiency, and can generate reverse thrust by tilting their blades in the opposite direction. I'm not sure that this was actually done on ships of the 1950s, though; it may be too recent.
Either way the thrust is reversed at the screws, they will be considerably less efficient; their shape is optimized for forward thrust. This will reduce the ship's speed when steaming astern. TomTheHand 12:10, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, steaming astern is different. Most Steam Turbine engines on ships were seperated into HP and LP Turbines, with an astern turbine only consisting of 2 Curtis Stages (1 Nozzle, 1 rotational, 1 stationary, 1 rotational blade in each Curtis Stage), so the efficiency is a LOT less when going astern as well. Otherwise, it mostly has to do with efficency of ship design and such, ahead versus astern. Hengineer 19:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Length?

On here it says the ship is 990 ft but you if go on google earth and measure the ship from bow to stern it says 1,008 ft, did it's builders lie about the ships length? User:Daniel Chiswick 25 May, 2007.

Beam?

The construction section says the ship was built to panamax spec and lists the beam as 106 ft (32m). However, in the sidebar section general characteristics, the beam is listed as 101 ft (30.8 m). My question is then, how many feet on either side of an SS US in the canal; is it 2 feet or 4.5 feet? The posp 00:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC) As a note, google earth's line tool gives a little over 106 ft, but I wouldn't call that authoritative by any stretch of the imagination. Anyone in the philly area with their nights free own a 110-ft tape measure? ;-) The posp 01:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Broken Link: "How Fast Can It Go?"

http://www.engin.umich.edu/dept/name/news/Nautilus.dir/Volume_25/NautilusFinalPrint.pdf

Does anyone have an alternate link? I did a little googling, but since I haven't seen the original pdf from the umich website, I don't really know what to search for. Alternately, is the document copyrighted and/or does anyone have a copy of the original pdf? The posp 01:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for following up (and for your original discovery). Even if they don't restore the link maybe they will give you publication information so that it could be referenced to a print source. Kablammo 17:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It appears to be from a departmental newsletter entitled Nautilus. See very end of [3] Kablammo 14:31, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Volume 25 would be from around 2004/2005 - http://name.engin.umich.edu/nautilus has 3 recent issues, but they are all from 2007-2009. http://web.archive.org/web/20041218023157/www.engin.umich.edu/dept/name/news/Nautilus.dir/nautilus.html has a list of newsletters, but none of the links I tried are working.

More recent newsletters have contact information, it's probably best to call, are there any UMICH students or alumni willing to do so? rhyre (talk) 20:00, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

lol

look at the side bar

Launched: 1952 Christened: 1952 Acquired: 1997 Commissioned: 1952 Decommissioned: 1986 In service: 1952 Out of service: 1986 Renamed: None Reclassified: 1992 Captured: None Struck: None Reinstated: 1978 Status: Laid up —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.147.153 (talk) 02:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note

Claude Jones died aboard this ship in 1962. Not sure how to integrate this into the article, but worth mentioning. Chubbles (talk) 22:17, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fastest Liner Ever

"...she is the largest ocean liner to date built entirely in the United States and is still the fastest liner ever built."

Can she still be called the fastest liner ever when she has been beaten by Hoverspeed Great Britain, Catalonia and Cat-Link V on the eastbound transatlantic crossing (by a considerable margin). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.47.85 (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The operative word is liner. The three successors holding the eastbound Blue Riband are not considered true ocean liners. Kablammo (talk) 14:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relation to Iowa-class Engines

I have removed the claim that the machinery of the United States is a "derated" version of that on the Iowa-class battleships. The machinery of the Iowas and of United States were of the same generation of high-pressure, high-temperature machinery developed in the United States in the 1930s, and fitted in most turbine-powered USN ships build during the World War II era. But there was no special relationship between Iowa and United States in this respect, nor was there anything special, or particularly secret, about Iowa's machinery. The machinery of the United States certainly was not a derated version of that on the Iowas; in fact her horsepower and steam pressure were greater than on the battleships (240,000 versus 212,000 SHP; steam pressure was 600 psi in the Iowas, while that on United States was either 875 or 920 psi, depending on the source--Ingvar Jung's Marine Turbine and Denis Griffiths's Power of the Great Liners, respectively). Keacla1 (talk) 18:19, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fire Resistant Wood?

Anyone know what species the "fire resistant wood" that the piano was made of actually was?151.200.57.31 (talk) 20:30, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try one of the reference desks, my friend. :) —Ed 17 (Talk / Contribs) 20:43, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fireproof wood

The reference desks were not much help. I would be really interested if anyone knows the name of this "fireproof wood."98.170.192.34 (talk) 05:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have anything tying this to the United States, but Brazilian Walnut is supposedly used in boardwalks and such for its resistance to rot and fire. Might be a choice for this application as well. - SummerPhD (talk) 20:57, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The piano was made out of mahogany. Source: "Die Jagd ums Blaue Band" by H.J.Rook ISBN: 3-8112-1187-0 --Gdf36 (talk) 18:49, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't anybody want a Blue Riband?

This article says that the Hoverspeed Great Britain won the eastbound Blue Riband, taking it from the SS United States. The Hoverspeed Great Britain page, as well as the Blue Riband page, say there's no such thing; the Blue Riband is only for westbound crossings. It's funny to see these two legendary ships deferring to each other on Wikipedia like Chip and Dale. But two of the three pages say it belongs to the Big U, so this page should be amended to state simply that the United States still holds the Blue Riband. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.44.94.154 (talk) 01:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

January 2010 updates ☺

http://ssunitedstatesconservancy.org/SSUS/blog/ Probably time to add some more material to the article -- it looks like the ship is going to be saved... --98.232.181.201 (talk) 05:11, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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