We passed the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior earlier this month. While Gordon Lightfoot's song was somewhat overplayed when it was originally released, it's a fairly accurate account of the actual event, and relatives of the Fitzgerald's crew have expressed appreciation for the song as it keeps alive the memory of their loved ones.
If you think the song is ponderous, you should see one of these ships working the Great Lakes. The slow tempo of the song and that repetitive chorus perfectly capture the extraordinary effort it takes those ships to put water behind them.
I've been working overnights at one of my jobs. In the morning, I'll take a walk downtown, and occasionally I'll end up at Navy Pier. Invariably I'll walk all the way to the east end of the pier, settle into one of the benches, gaze out on Lake Michigan, and catch-up on phone calls. One day, I saw a freighter making it's way down the lake, a rare sight now that the South Works are gone, and it was easily 10 miles offshore. Presumably, it was on its way to Gary, Indiana's steel mills or possibly the grain elevators. It was huge.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was 750 feet long and 75 feet wide, and it was the biggest ship ever to sail the Great Lakes from the day it was launched right up to the day it sank. Even in the worst weather, a big ship must still give its crew a pretty high level of confidence that it can weather the storm. Perhaps you just take some of this for granted.
I sat on the pier and watched that ship make its way across the lake, slowly, like it was barely moving, and I thought to myself, It had to be a helluva storm that night to take down a ship that size.
The Fitzgerald had set sail from Superior, Wisconsin on her way to Detroit with a 26,000 tons of taconite -- iron ore pellets -- and Capt. Ernest McSorley at the helm, a veteran of better than 40 years on the Great Lakes. Piloting through the storm, the Fitzgerald was making her way along the Canadian coast when the gale force northeast winds shifted and began blowing from the north west, blowing continuously at 50-60 mph over open water. More fetch. Bigger waves. The Fitzgerald was being pounded by 30 foot waves at intervals as close as 150-200 feet. One or more defective hatches was allowing water to get into the hold taking the Fitzgerald lower in the water. At 7:10pm on the evening of November 10th, at the height of the storm, Capt. McSorley made his last radio transmission to another ship shadowing the Fitzgerald and checking on her progress. Fifteen minutes later, the Fitzgerald disappeared from the radar screen of the Arthur Anderson, the ore carrier just ten miles behind her and keeping her company.
The maritime accident report has a chilling account of one theory about how the Fitzgerald sank. It believes that a large wave carried her stern up in the air, shifting her cargo of taconite to the bow of the boat, and causing the bow to plow into the water. With the wave continuing to lift her stern, and the cargo continuing to shift forward, it took the 750 foot-long Fitzgerald and impaled her now front-heavy bow on the bottom of the 550 foot deep lake. Nearly vertical now, she snapped in two, and it must have happened in just seconds.
She lies at the bottom of Lake Superior off Whitefish Point, Michigan in two pieces. The front of the ship lies right side up. The pilot house is upside down on top of the front piece. You can count on one hand the number of items that were recovered. I don't believe any remains were found.
On November 10th the bell chimed 30 times -- 29 times for each of the crew and once for all others lost at sea -- and that final toll carries a special significance on the 30th anniversary of her sinking.
This is perhaps the best site I've found for information on the life and times of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
http://www.ssefo.com tony b.
"We're holding our own..."
