SS United States

Friends, if you have kept track of the news recently, you have probably noticed the name of a ship: SS United States. This iconic passenger liner crossed the Atlantic at phenomenal speeds from 1952 to 1969. Soon, the ship will have a second life as an artificial reef. 

SS United States left the Port of Philadelphia for Mobile, Alabama just a few weeks ago. The ship has now arrived in Alabama, where it will be stripped and prepared for deployment. SS United States is 300 m long - larger than Titanic - so the cleaning process is estimated to take 6 months. When SS United States is ready, the ship will be sunk offshore of Destin, FL. The world's largest artificial reef will come to her final resting place later this year. 

If you are reading this blog, you probably already know how much I love shipwrecks. Over the past decade, I have studied the Billy Mitchell fleet, the passenger steamship Portland, other shipwrecks in Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, the mobile oil drilling rig CP Baker, the Norwegian freighter Hamlet, and WWII ships and airplanes in Palau. I have used remotely operated vehicles, autonomous vehicles, fouling panels, larval traps, SCUBA diving, and underwater photography to collect samples and make observations. Even when I'm on vacation, the back of my mind gathers information and forms hypotheses about how communities of animals form on shipwrecks. I can't help it. 

When I learned about the SS United States, my heart skipped a beat. For the past several years, I have worked with collaborators to develop an interdisciplinary framework called Maritime Heritage Ecology. Together, we aim to understand how anthropogenic habitats such as shipwrecks influence and are influenced by the environment around them. My team's research integrates principles from history, archaeology, chemistry, microbiology, invertebrate zoology, and toxicology to comprehensively understand the role that underwater cultural heritage plays in our ocean environment. In fact, shipwrecks serve as excellent analogues to help us understand the impacts of oil rigs, offshore wind turbines, and other structures in "ocean sprawl." 

Most of the time, when researchers find a shipwreck, it has already been on the seafloor for years or decades. It's broken apart; it's covered in animals; part of it is corroded; there are entangled fishing nets, and we don't know which of those came first. It's the classic chicken-and-egg problem, if you showed up at a farmhouse to find a pile of chicken bones and egg shells. Understanding how environmental factors influence shipwrecks and how shipwrecks influence the environment around them requires us to track changes over time. We have to be there from the beginning. 

Enter the SS United States. This iconic, colossal, magnificent piece of history is now becoming my dream experiment. When SS United States comes to rest on the seafloor later this year, I intend to be there. As soon as possible after the deployment of the world's largest artificial reef, I will pack my dive gear and sampling equipment in the back of my truck and head to Florida. My team will descend upon SS United States - literally - to capture the baseline physical, chemical, and biological condition of the ship. By returning every year, we can track changes over time and answer all our research questions about the role of that shipwrecks play in the ecosystem. 

Well, if we can afford it. 

Yes, friends, science requires money, and money is the one thing scientists are always short on. Part of my job is to constantly search for funding. In an average year, I crank out a dozen proposals, only one or two of which come back to me with a check attached. The vast majority of research proposals are simply declined. It can take years for a scientist to raise the money for a study they are passionate about. 

In this case, I don't have years to wait. The clock is ticking. SS United States will be deployed before the end of 2025, and if I don't have the funding I need to sample the ship as soon as she hits the seafloor, I will lose my chance. Our baseline study is absolutely critical and cannot wait. 

Right now, I am in proposal mode. I will submit 6 proposals for baseline research on SS United States in the next 2 months, but I'm not stopping there. I am scouring the internet for private foundations that might be interested in supporting my work. I am telling everyone I meet about my goals. I even got permission from WHOI's Development team to present my plans for SS United States during a meeting of New York Chapter members.

So here we go, friends. I estimate the cost to establish the baseline and launch the long-term study on SS United States at $50,000. If you or someone you know is interested in supporting my research, please reach out to me at kmeyer@whoi.edu. I would love to connect with you and tell you more about my plans for the world's first long-term study in Maritime Heritage Ecology.