Independence Being Scaped

THE INDEPENDENCE made its final departure from a U.S. port last week: The 57-year-old ocean liner left its berth in San Francisco en route to a scrap yard in Asia. Norwegian Cruise Line, which bought the vessel for a reported $4 million in 2003, sold it to an interim purchaser, which has renamed the ship the Oceanic and is sending the ship to Singapore to be sold for scrap. NCL bought the Independence along with the United States, another U.S.-flagged ocean liner, in 2003, but the Independence was said to be in worse shape than the United States. The Independence is a sister ship to the Constitution, an ocean liner that sank while being towed to Asia to be scrapped in 1997; that ship had also been renamed the Oceanic.