Probably better to make a new one. The hull inspection is going to be a mess, and fraught with risk.

In response to engine room note - No doubt the steam boilers, which are dangerous and maintenance intensive, will be replaced by diesel electric (diesel, generator, vfd motor). Wartsilla is the world leader in these diesel engines, and ABB is the world leader in the propulsion system. The US used to be the world leader until after WWII, when turbine gear drives started taking over. Most of the cool WWII battleships etc were steam-turbine-electric.

Cruise ships favor electric propulsion because the hotel loads for the ship (6-15MW) are a significant fraction of the propulsion loads (~2x20MW).

Growing up in NYC I had the opportunity to see her many many times tied up at the hudson river dock. once i even saw the uss us , qe 1 and the queen mary side by side. I think it was the only time that they were all in port at the same time.

The question is if they can do the refit in a non-US port (Hong Kong, perhaps?) to avoid the interference of the anti-business moocherist self-entitled dotgov and the good little enviro-socialists our country has spawned.

Nothing would make one of those little haters feel more self-aggrandized than being the little fish that ruined a huge plan that would start to bring back American Jobs and Industry. They could then claim bragging rights among the other scumballs... as in "Look what I destroyed, aren't I the coolest Super-envirowacko ever???"

They would look at this, not as a source of national pride (which they detest), but another symbol of how evil America is, and how we should destroy ourselves. Gak!

Me old dino gets seasick~

http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/welln...

First, I admit to be a neophyte regarding this topic.
Why would the foreign owners be dull enough to do refitting in a location that required EPA approvals? To retain a US flag? That would appear to negate any cost/benefit advantage of such a flag, and just asking for imperial entanglements.

Crystal was sold to Genting over the past year and so far it seems like a great marriage. A new ship, a 747, a yacht, and a few river boats later and Edie has the dream job. Over at cruise critic this has been the hot topic of the day on Crystals threads.

I have sailed a couple times with Crystal and am a fan, but anything over 700 guests is going to be received critically.

So yea, this is interesting, what a ship, and Genting has put so much into this company, I could see her sailing again.

Aloha,
iSank

I've been following this off and on too, pessimistically, so this is excellent news, assuming they can actually get it done.

My only personal story on the S.S. United States is that I built a Revell model of it back in the mid-'70s when I was something like 12 or 13 (with the Wishbone Ash "Live Dates" album on continuous loop for the duration, so, weirdly, listening to that album instantly transports me back to... building the S.S. United States. 8^] 'Funny how music acts as a kind of "time-stamp" on the things that were going on in your life when you first heard it.)

What I love most about this particular ship is that it captures that excellent '50s aesthetic of dawning space-age modernity, mixed with classic cruise liner grace - something these boxy, bloated "bigger-for-bigger's-sake" contemporary things from the Carnivals and Royal Caribbeans utterly lack.

I just... hope they get it done, 'cause if I were ever to take another cruise, there's no ship I'd rather sail, unless they yanked the original Queen Mary out of LB harbor and got it going again. (R.M.S. Queen Mary: The second Revell ocean liner model I built.)

So here's a secondary note to parents on this thread: If you can get your kids interested in plastic models, particularly of historical vehicles, do it. There's a whole lot of thinking and absorbing of history that happens in a kid's head whilst spending hours building a scale model of something. I'm pretty sure I would have little interest in - or knowledge of - this ship if I hadn't done the model.

To retrofit the USS United States in the US would be cost prhibitive. Disposal of any dangerous materials such as insulation, stateroom materials and engine space could be a major problem in this country. She could be towed by ocean going tugs to a foreign shipyard is doable. It looks like she'll need a new bow section with a nosed one along with thrusters, The hull will need to have to be scanned for metal deterioration. They have to cut a sizeable hole in the superstructure to lower in new propulsion plant. The main shaft will have to be removed and the stern refabricated for more than one drive unit, The cost of all the steel would be cheaper in a overseas shipyard.