This article is from the fall 2025 edition of Mobile Baykeeper’s print quarterly, CURRENTS. The magazine is mailed to active members who have given more than $50 in the past year. To get on the magazine’s mailing list, donate here.
By Susan Rouillier | Photo by Caine O’Rear
In 1952, she claimed the Blue Riband —
Crown of speed across the Atlantic
earned in salt and thunder
a streak of steel and power.
No passenger ship
touched that record since.
She holds it still —
silent now, but unbeaten.
She remembered.
You could feel it.
She came on high tide,
steel heart, once fierce with fire,
towed slow now
from Philadelphia up Mobile Bay.
Rusted ribs beneath her pride,
flags long folded,
purpose quiet, hull worn wide.
People watched from shrimp boats,
sailboats, yachts, pleasure boats,
as she passed by Gaillard Island.
They were silent, like they knew a prayer
but couldn’t say it.
From a pier we watched,
lifting our glasses in solemn toast —
honoring every soul
who forged her frame,
journeyed upon her decks,
and tended her through countless tides.
The gulls circled.
Pelicans waited,
as if they knew
she was coming home.
Welders and divers
will take her down —
not to erase
but to give her over
to the deep.
No brass band.
They will sink her.
Let the sea have her.
And the sea will come.
Amberjack will slide through her hangars,
octopi curling in the engine room,
tasting rust of memories.
Spadefish will shimmer through open hatches
where passengers once walked.
Barracuda will keep watch,
sentries in silver armor,
sea fans sway in silence,
coral takes root in her scars.
She will live quiet —
not gone, just different.
The old ship will rest,
not in glory,
in usefulness.
And that,
too,
is honor.
