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- Dive Her!
The proud Texas Clipper
has been reefed,
creating a diving haven...
Her History
USS Queens, 1944 - 1946
She was commissioned by the Navy as the Queens (APA-103) in December 1944, a troop transport ship with a rich naval history who served her country well in World War II. She ferried fresh troops into battle and cared for and shuttled the wounded from Iwo Jima. She was also part of the American occupation at Sasebo, Japan before being decommissioned in 1946.
SS Excambion, 1948 - 1958
From 1948 to 1958, she was commissioned the S.S. Excambion and served as one of the post-war four aces for American Export Lines. The original Four Aces were luxurious ocean liners that routinely crossed that Atlantic and visited Mediterranean ports of call. They were converted to troop transports when the U.S. entered World War II and three of them were sunk in battle. Three troop transports, including the Texas Clipper as the Excambion, were converted to cruise liners and again sailed to Mediterranean ports.
USTS Texas Clipper, 1965- 1996
The U.S.T.S. Texas Clipper was commissioned as the first Texas Maritime Training Academy ship and served sea cadets at Texas A&M University at Galveston from 1965 to 1996. She spent summers at sea and provided an ocean-going campus for about 200 students at a time. They learned the workings of a ship, studied the world's oceans and broadened their horizons beyond the normal constraints of a classroom.
TPWD Ships-to-Reefs Program, 1998 - present
The Reef Program has been actively working on the Texas Clipper project since 1998. Plans now call for reefing the ship on the sandy bottom of the Gulf of Mexico 17 miles off the south Texas coast. She will be more than a typical artificial reef and will become a world class diving destination. She will be the Texas Clipper, a proud Aggie training vessel, a cruise liner and a proud battle-tested Naval Ship. She will rest proudly and gracefully off the Texas coast and serve the diving and fishing community for many more decades. She will be there as an oasis for marine life in an otherwise vast expanse of the mostly flat sand and mud bottom of the open Gulf.