"Preventing fumes on decks from the funnels has always been a headache for ship designers. Although it was proved that the streamlined funnel design of William Francis Gibbs used previously on the SS Santa Rosa and her three sister ships and on the SS America, was also suitable for the great SS United States, some changes were made in order to definitely improve the results. The idea was surprisingly simple and consisted of modifying the fins angle by making them parallel to the ship’s keel and not raked aft, as in all of Gibbs’ previous designs.Wind tunnel tests proved that the fins rotation directed the smoke fumes upward and aft by the strong wind currents created by at the trailing edge of the now horizontal fin design. This resulted in keeping decks virtually smoke free, as never before achieved on a liner. The man responsible of this successful idea wasn't Mr. Gibbs but a Newport News shipyard apprentice named Howard E. Lee Jr., who, as result of his experience with building and flying model airplanes, decided to apply the concept of ‘lift’ associated with airfoils to shipbuilding."Learn more about the ship here.