没有烟囱的“美国号”邮轮停泊在阿拉巴马州莫比尔港，随后于周三沉没。
The SS United States, without its smokestacks, at port in Mobile, Ala., before its sinking on Wednesday.
德斯廷-沃尔顿堡海滩/NPR截图 世界上最快的客轮曾在不到四天内横渡大西洋。周三，它在五小时内沉没。
Destin-Fort Walton Beach/Screenshot by NPR The fastest passenger liner in the world crossed the Atlantic Ocean in less than four days. On Wednesday, it sank in five hours.
“美国号”邮轮于1951年下水，船身比“泰坦尼克号”更长，曾运送过四位总统、《蒙娜丽莎》油画以及一众20世纪电影明星。在码头锈蚀、面临拆解报废数十年后，其管理方敲定了一项协议，将该船打造成预计将成为世界上最大的人工礁石，沉放于佛罗里达州奥卡鲁萨县近海。
The SS United States, launched in 1951 and longer than the RMS Titanic, once transported four presidents, the Mona Lisa and a slate of 20th century movie stars. After decades spent rusting and facing the scrap heap, its minders settled on a deal to turn the vessel into what's expected to be the world's largest artificial reef off the coast of Okaloosa County, Fla.
工作人员拆除了船体上的塞子，让海水在不使用炸药的情况下灌入船舱。经过数小时的延误，其最后时刻来得很快。船体向一侧倾斜，随即没入波涛之下。
Crews removed plugs in the ship's hull, allowing it to fill with water without the use of explosives. After hours of delays, its final moments went quickly. The ship tilted onto its side and dipped below the waves.
这次沉没为那个巨轮以优雅姿态劈波斩浪的时代，写下了一个苦乐参半的尾声。这也是沿海社区持续努力、试图将寻求刺激的游客从国际目的地吸引过来的最新举措，迄今已产生了令人惊讶的经济效益。
The sinking marks a bittersweet coda to the era of gleaming behemoths that crossed the seas in elegant fashion. It is also the latest in an ongoing effort by coastal communities to lure thrill-seeking tourists away from international destinations, one that has so far generated surprising economic benefits.
“美国号”邮轮在1952年7月15日一次横渡大西洋的东西向航行中，美国演员兼喜剧演员米尔顿·伯勒在甲板上嬉戏。
"For those of us who love shipwrecks and love ships in general, it was way more tragic to see it sitting and rusting away at the dock," wreck diver and maritime enthusiast Karen Flynn told NPR.
英格博格·塔利亚雷克/基斯通/霍尔顿档案/盖蒂图片社 “对于我们这些热爱沉船、热爱船只本身的人来说，看着它停在码头上锈蚀腐烂，要悲剧得多，”沉船潜水员兼海事爱好者凯伦·弗林对美国国家公共电台（NPR）表示。
American actor and comedian Milton Berle clowning around on the deck of the SS United States during an east-west crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on July 15,1952.
她所在的马里兰州“大西洋沉船潜水俱乐部”，在船只“部署”日期——沉没的外交辞令——确定后仅几天内，就预订了船票和包船。
Ingeborg Talliarek/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Her diving club, the Maryland-based Atlantic Wreck Divers, booked tickets and a charter boat just days after a date for the ship's "deployment," as the sinking is diplomatically described, was set.
“我们潜遍了世界各地能潜的地方，”弗林说。“这对我们来说只是又一个独特的新潜点。”潜在的旅游热潮在许多方面，弗林和她的俱乐部正是奥卡卢萨县希望吸引的那类游客：计划过夜停留、在旅途中将在装备、餐饮和住宿上花费相当一笔钱的潜水员。
"We've dove everything that you can around the world," Flynn said. "This will just be one more unique, new thing for us to dive." A potential tourism boom In many ways, Flynn and her club are the exact type of visitor that Okaloosa County is hoping to attract: divers planning to stay overnight who will spend a fair amount of money on equipment, food and lodging during their travels.
这个佛罗里达狭长地带的县份已经沉放了数百个人工礁，其中许多是船只。
The Florida panhandle county has sunk hundreds of artificial reefs, many of which are ships or boats.
“这肯定是我们做过的最大的一个，”奥卡卢萨县旅游局局长珍妮弗·亚当斯说。全长近1000英尺的“美国号”如今成了这一水下收藏的核心。
"Certainly this is the biggest that we've done," said Okaloosa County tourism director Jennifer Adams. The United States, which is nearly 1,000 feet long, is now the centerpiece of that watery collection.
亚当斯说，礁石每年为该县带来约1000万至1200万美元的经济效益。她预计这一数字将会上升，并认为该县将在“几年内”收回在“美国号”上投入的1000万美元。亚当斯表示，为兑现这一承诺，该客轮的改造旨在同时吸引游客、海洋生物和联邦监管机构。其船体已清除有毒材料和大型部件，船身本身被安置在距离德斯廷市海滩20多海里的地方。
Reefs bring in roughly $10 million to $12 million in annual economic benefits for the county, Adams said. She expects that number to climb now, and for the county to recoup its $10 million investment in the United States in "a couple of years." To fulfill that promise, the liner's transformation was designed to appeal to tourists, marine life and federal regulators, Adams said. Its hull was stripped of toxic materials and bulky components, and the ship itself was placed just over 20 nautical miles from the city of Destin's beaches.
“它应该停泊在一个位置，使其上层甲板……不超出休闲潜水的深度限制，”潜水员弗林说。“美国号”停泊在费城原泊位时的照片。“美国号”保护协会供图狭长地带各县现在拥有几艘可能吸引游客的大型船只。“美国号”加入了“奥里斯卡尼号”——这艘长888英尺的战后航空母舰于2006年被美国海军在彭萨科拉附近沉没——并将使该地区拥有全球第一和第二大的人工礁。
"It should rest at a place where its upper decks … are not outside of the recreational diving limits," said Flynn, the diver. SS United States seen at its former berth in Philadelphia. SS United States Conservancy Panhandle counties now have a claim to several big-ticket ships that could draw tourists. The SS United States joins the USS Oriskany — a 888-foot post-war aircraft carrier sunk by the U.S. Navy off Pensacola in 2006 — and is set to make the area home to the first and second largest artificial reefs globally.
自1940年以来，仅佛罗里达州就建造了4000多个人工鱼礁，这是根据该州鱼类和野生动物保护委员会的统计得出的。美国国家海洋和大气管理局分析了2017年关于人工鱼礁和天然鱼礁周边潜水旅游的数据。该机构测算，仅前往其中几个人工鱼礁的游客，每年就产生了近10亿美元的经济效益。
Since 1940, Florida alone has created more than 4,000 artificial reefs, according to a state fish and wildlife commission tally The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed 2017 data on diving tourism around artificial and natural reefs. It calculated that visits to just a few of those reefs generated almost a billion dollars in annual economic benefits. Economist Andrew Ropicki, at the University of Florida, says Okaloosa and its surrounding counties have something of a "critical mass" of these planned shipwrecks.
佛罗里达大学经济学家安德鲁·罗皮基表示，奥卡鲁萨县及其周边县域拥有某种程度的这些计划沉船的“临界规模”。他说：“你们能比其他地区吸纳更多的旅游收入。”
"You can capture more of those tourism dollars than [other areas]," he said. But Ropicki also warned that an overinvestment in reefing might eventually lead to diminishing returns, as visitor interests shift or they become overwhelmed by choice.
但罗皮基也警告称，过度投资建设鱼礁最终可能导致边际效益递减，因为游客兴趣会转移，或者他们会因选择过多而感到无所适从。
Adams, the Okaloosa tourism director, told NPR plans are already in the works to sink "five or six" additional artificial reefs after the SS United States.
奥卡鲁萨县旅游局局长亚当斯告诉美国国家公共广播电台（NPR），在“美国号”沉船之后，计划已在推进中，将再沉放“五到六个”额外的人工鱼礁。
For now, however, she hopes the sight of such a unique ship below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is enough to draw crowds.
不过目前，她希望在墨西哥湾水面下看到这样一艘独特的沉船，足以吸引人潮。
Sovereign of the seas Wednesday's sinking carries a far more complicated set of emotions for Susan Gibbs.
海上霸主 周三的沉船仪式，对苏珊·吉布斯而言承载着复杂得多的情感。她是“美国号”保护协会的负责人——在该船命运多舛、长期系泊在费城的大部分时间里，该协会都是其管护方。
She's head of the SS United States Conservancy — custodian through much of the ship's ill-fated stretch moored in Philadelphia. "I'm full of a complex mix of sorrow but gratitude and pride and hope," she said prior to the sinking.
沉船前她说：“我内心充满了复杂的交织：悲伤、感激、自豪与希望。”
Gibbs is the granddaughter of William Francis Gibbs who worked obsessively on the ocean liner almost a century ago.
吉布斯是威廉·弗朗西斯·吉布斯的孙女，后者近一个世纪前曾全神贯注地致力于这艘远洋客轮的建造。在二战结束、喷气式客机时代来临之前的短暂时期，他的杰作曾是美国运输业的骄傲。
For a short period, after the end of World War II and before the age of the passenger jet, his creation was the pride of the American transportation industry. "He would freely admit that he loved this ship a thousand times more than my grandmother," she said.
“他会毫不掩饰地承认，他爱这艘船胜过爱我的祖母，足足一千倍，”她说。
Now, seeing her grandfather's crowning achievement stripped and scuttled feels "complicated."
如今，眼睁睁看着祖父的巅峰之作被拆解、凿沉，感觉“很复杂”。她的组织于2024年以100万美元将“美国号”出售给奥卡鲁萨县，仅为其原始成本的一小部分。但对吉布斯来说，这比送进拆船厂要好得多。“我们认为，造礁是更有尊严的解决方案，”她说。
Her organization sold the SS United States to Okaloosa County for $1 million in 2024, a fraction of its original cost. But for Gibbs, it's a better fate for the vessel than a scrapyard. "We felt that reefing was by far the more dignified solution," she said. Karen Flynn, the wreck diver, agrees.
沉船潜水员凯伦·弗林也表示赞同。她说，即使沉入海底，这艘船依然会有一种宏伟感。
She says even below the waves the ship will still have a sense of grandeur. "There's something about looking out over that bridge … and seeing the nose of the bow and then seeing just the blue out in front of it," she said.
“透过舰桥向外望去……看到船头切入，前方尽是蔚蓝，”她说，“那将是一个壮观的画面。”
"That is going to be a spectacular shot."