Plan To Restore SS United States Ocean Liner To Seagoing Status Scrapped
By Kim Glovas
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The SS United States, the only remaining ocean liner in the country, will NOT be restored any time soon.
The ship is docked on the Delaware River, on Delaware Avenue, and has been moth-balled since 1969.
Crystal Cruises just completed an intensive six month evaluation and determined that returning the historic liner to service would be an insurmountable challenge.
The evaluation showed that while the SS United States is structurally sound, updating it both technically and commercially proved to be nearly impossible, and would change the ship's historic design significantly.
The SS United States Conservancy, which owns the liner, will return to it's original plan. That plan was to have the ship become part of an urban waterfront mixed-use development or museum.
Crystal Cruises invested about a million dollars in the evaluation. The cruise company is now donating 350-thousand dollars to the conservancy to continue it's mission.