Soon after, McSorely on the Fitzgerald reported taking topside damage and a list. Keep up with the magazine, news and happenings around the Big Lake. McSorley was forced to rely off reports from the United States Coast guard and the still functional radar of theAndersonto operate through the storm. Sault Ste Marie, MI 49783 Cooper asked McSorley how they were doing. The Great Lakes Ore Carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald, Known to Lake Mariners as "The Mighty Fitz". The bodies have not been recovered. Burgner said a shipyard worker showed him evidence of old keel weld breaks during the 1972-73 winter lay-up that were brought to McSorley and dismissed. Marie at 7:39 p.m., continued to try to raise radio contact with the big ship. The heavy seas overwhelmed a ship that had already lost freeboard and was listing. Enter the text you see in the image below. A body that was seen but not retrieved is not a recovered body. Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society and Emory Kristof, National Geographic Magazine. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. Morgan Clark, first mate of the Anderson, kept watching the Fitzgerald on the radar set to calculate her distance from some other vessels near Whitefish Point. By stretching more than 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the island Caribou north point, a dangerous reef is presently known as "Six Fathom Shoal." The LCA stated that the patented steel hatch covers had been in continuous use for more than 30 years and had proven to be effective hatch closures in all weather conditions throughout that period. Gordon Lightfoot liked this theory, posited by the National Transportation Safety Board a year after the Coast Guard issued its report. She was under command of Canadian born and highly experienced ship master Captain Ernest M. McSorely. After 10:00 PM, Cooper and his crew noticed large and small pieces of floating wreckage from theFitzgeraldwhich didn't make the situation any better.By the morning of November 11, the Coast Guard had managed to arrive at the scene to assist in the search and rescue operation. The Lake Carriers Association disagreed, proposing that the Six Fathom Shoal was the Fitzgerald's undoing. 3:30 PM Radio transmission between the Fitzgerald and the Anderson Much of the information not commonly seen in other articles is courtesy of an interview with a tugboat captain on Lake Superior called "Tugboat Jim" who was close friends with a late crewmember of theArthur M. Andersoncrewmember Ronnie Roman, who was aboard theAndersonthe night Fitzgerald sank. Captain Woodard, who was acquainted with McSorley and had talked with him many times previously, said in testimony that he didnt recognize the voice when first they spoke and that McSorley sounded strange. The shoaling hypothesis suggests that the most probable cause of the Edmund Fitzgerald's wreckage was her shoaling or grounding in the Six Fathom Shoal northwest of Caribou Island when the crew was unable to use the Whitefish Point Light as a navigational aid. $45.00. All rights reserved. In 2003, the herd was estimated to have 490,000 individuals, 6 and in 2016, the herd count decreased to 201,000. Let's not forget about the structural failure of the Carl D. Bradley on Lake Michigan in 1958. Captain Cooper observed the Fitzgerald passing very close to the dangerous Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island on the east side of the lake at around 1520 on November 10. Since these two large waves struck the trailing Anderson mere minutes before its final radar contact with the Fitzgerald, might they have joined a third rogue wave, overtaken the struggling Fitz 10 or 15 minutes later and overwhelmed the already listing and troubled ship? Not the same yard, but what if it was rebuilt, same cargo, same shape, same functionality, but a new keel? Because all 29 men aboard the Fitzgerald went down with the ship -- which was there one minute and gone the next -- the best accounts that investigators could rely on were those of sailors in the vicinity of the ship during the storm, or who had contact with the Fitzgerald somehow in the weeks prior to her final voyage. On May 20, 1976, the words Edmund Fitzgerald were clearly seen on the stern, upside down, 535 feet below the surface of the lake. 4:10 PM - Nov. 10th, 1975 - Eastern Lake Superior, southeast of Caribou Island. The situation was worsened when McSorely reported to Cooper that his radar was gone. I, respectfully, can't and won't feel the magnitude of this tragedy by those directly affected. What is known is that 29 men lost their lives in the cold waters of Lake Superior and that their families continue to mourn in private amid the celebrity of the shipwreck. The modification never took place and the patch plates could be seen at the shipyard a couple of years after theFitzgerald'sdemise.TheEdmund Fitzgeralddeparted on what would be her last voyage the afternoon of November 9, 1975 leaving the iron ore docks of Superior, Wisconsin bound for aZug Island steel foundry near Detroit,Michigan. An explanation that has been espoused several times by mariners is that the Fitzgerald suffered a stress fracture and broke apart on the surface from the effects of heavy seas twisting and flexing the hull. Captains challenge high waves with he bow, not the stern. They said, however, they were inclined to accept that the Fitzgerald passed over the Six Fathom Shoal Area as reported by Cooper. They issued a letter to the National Transportation Safety Board in September, 1977. While EPIRB would not have aided the crew of the Fitzgerald, it would have identified the sunken ship and given searchers a location to start their effort to find survivors. The flooding of the cargo hold took place through ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck.. On April 15, 1977 the U.S. Coast Guard released its official report on Subject: S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, official number 277437, sinking in Lake Superior on 10 November 1975 with loss of life. While the Coast Guard said the cause of the sinking could not be conclusively determined, it maintained that the most probable cause of the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was the loss of buoyancy and stability resulting from massive flooding of the cargo hold. The steel and iron plates still sat on the dock two years later. Ill give it a try., Do you realize what the conditions are out there?. A 2010 television episode of Dive Detectives simulated the effect of a 56-foot wave on a scale model of the Fitzgerald. Below is a breakdown of the main theories: Faulty hatch covers caused massive internal flooding. No reply from the Coast Guard. Despite many people accepting this as the most likely scenario for the sudden list and deck damage, the photographic evidence for such a grounding simply doesnt exist. These records are part of the Records of Bureau of the Census, Record Group (RG) 29. At 3:30 pm that afternoon, Captain McSorley radioed Captain Cooper and said: Anderson, this is the Fitzgerald. The debate rages to this day. The following May, 1976, Woodrush was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problems? asked Clark. The mystery is compounded by mud covering key parts of the wreck and a legal prohibition on further dives imposed by the Canadian government. There is a very good chance that this is what helped lead to her demise. 43 and 1/2 years later the feeling of that morning is still vivid in my mind. I watched those two waves head down the lake towards the Fitzgerald, and I think those were the two that sent her under.. She was already moving slow and was listing as well. Still remember it after all this time.. Soon after, McSorely on the Fitzgerald reported taking topside damage and a list. and Sutcliffe, R., 1989. Lowell, who died in 2016, started out as a journalist in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, and had already covered politics, and civil rights events and disturbances, for the Detroit News, then Newsweek; including events like the 1967 Detroit Riot, the May 1970 Kent State shootings in Ohio, and the September 1971 Attica Prison riot, as well as covering organized crime, labour, and the auto industry, by the time the Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in November 1975. I wouldnt be surprised if a hatch cover came off, because I loaded right beside him in Superior on November 9 and the deck crew was still putting on hatch covers when they left the Superior Entry into Lake Superior, Captain Paquette says. So the target would be 9 miles on ahead of you., Well, answered Captain McSorley, Am I going to clear?, Yes, he is going to pass to the west of you.. The Coast Guard launched a fixed-wing HU-16 aircraft at 10 pm and dispatched two cutters, the Naugatuck and the Woodrush. After enough persuasion, Cooper agreed to take theAndersonback out to sea followed by the LakerWilliam Clay Ford. With regards to iron ore shipping on the Great Lakes, it most certainly is still taking place. As the afternoon dragged on, the storm worsened. In the fewest words possible, I say She never should have embarked on this cruise, but She had to. A shallow reef 2.5 miles (4.0km) to the southwest of Caribou Island Lighthouse lies only 11 feet (3.4m) below the lake's surface. Cannon, W.F., Green, A.G., Hutchinson, D.R., Lee, M., Milkereit, B., Behrendt, J.C., Halls, H.C., Green, J.C., Dickas, A.B., Morey, G.B. Part of that fascination, despite the longspan since the foundering of the big ore freighter, results from Gordon Lightfoots monster best-selling recording about the wreck and part likely springs from the inconclusive nature of any facts surrounding the sinking. The insurance underwriters should have placed a hold on this trip. Another explanation offered from the many undamaged hatch clamps is that the clamps were never latched in the first place. At about 5:20 pm the crest of a wave smashed the Andersons starboard lifeboat, making it unusable. Since then, there have been about a half dozen dives to the wreck using deep-diving equipment. ZIP Code by City and State. No. Captain McSorley told Woodard that the ship has a bad list, implying that it had gotten worse since his earlier report to Captain Cooper. None, of course, were found and only floating debris gave clues that the Fitzgerald and its crew were lost. Eight minutes at the Fitz was all that he earned for his four-hour dive because of the necessary decompression. TheEdmund Fitzgeraldwas a "Laker" type iron ore bulk freighter launched on June 7, 1958 by the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rogue, Michigan for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company one year after its near sister shipArthur B. Homer. 400 W. Portage Avenue Others overlap in some ways. And then a song. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the longest boat on the Great Lakes. The bow lies mostly buried in the mud upright pointing towards Whitefish Bay. They are the last of their kind exposed to the human development and predation on the mainland. Because of a long fetch on Superior that night, the Fitzgerald and the Anderson were in an area of the lake where huge waves were indeed occurring. The popular misconception is that non of the crewmembers bodies were never discovered. The "Big Fitz"as she was affectionately known by her crew, also boasted several private staterooms for corporate guests of Oglebay Norton and Northwestern Mutual. [1][3] In addition, exposures of gently dipping, friable Jacobsville Sandstone, have been reported from Caribou Island. Despite having been built in Michigan and having operated mostly around Michigan,Edmund Fitzgeraldwas homeported in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Size wise, both theArthur B. HomerandEdmund Fitzgeraldwere impressive even compared to oceanic ships, with an outstanding length of 711 to 729 feet. I myself and my classmates are without a doubt able to state that is not only a prime example of media misinformation. TheFitzgeraldwould have extra steel plates installed between the hull bottom and her keel which would ensure the keel would no loner move freely from the hull and would stay fastened in place. NARA microfilm publication M1931, Index to Selected City Streets and Enumeration Districts, 1930 Census (7 rolls) reproduces a 57-volume typescript index to selected city streets and enumeration districts of the Fifteenth Census of the United States taken in 1930. Couseau had theorized a surface break up, which sounds similar to the Merril several years later. Looks like he was right on this one. A dynamic population. The ships were nearing Whitefish Bay. It is rumored that the light house keepers poached caribou and beaver. [1], The island was privately held by a group of hunters and stocked with caribou in the late 1800s. But almost certainly the suits would have saved the lives of some crewmen in the wrecks of the Carl D. Bradley and the Daniel J. Morrell, the two previous Great Lakes wrecks where most of the crews were lost.. Proven by: Large holes, Anderson's captain's concern for how close the Fitzgerald was to the shoal, inaccurate charts. ZIP Code by Address. Marie. At some point it all becomes moot, except for the 29 families who remain, and do without bread from their missing bread-winners. But it also added time and nautical miles to her course in the middle of shifting, increasing winds and waves -- FROM THE WEST -- behind her. With no visibility in a hurricane-like storm and no radar to guide him, theFitzgeraldwas sailing blinded moving slower with every gallon of water entering her hull. In addition to taking on water after *potentially* hitting bottom near Six fathom Shoals earlier this afternoon, the. In only 8 years time, this magnificent American vessel would be at the bottom of Lake Superior.). Perhaps the most romantic theory about the wreck of the Fitzgerald is that the ship succumbed to the forces of the Three Sisters, a Lake Superior phenomenon described as a combination of two large waves inundating the decks of a boat and a third, slightly later monster wave that boards the vessel as it struggles to shrug off the effects of the first two. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. When the skies of November turn gloomy.. 7 Caribou populations naturally fluctuate on 40-70 . Forty-four years ago today on Nov. 10, 1975, 18 kilometres off Coppermine Point, and 60 kilometres north of Sault Ste Marie, Ont., the 222-metre iron ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, with a crew of 29 aboard, sank. Caribou Island is an uninhabited island in the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 kilometres (25mi) south of Michipicoten Island. 5. Gaines, who began is career at the Saturday Review, the storied American weekly magazine that had started out as The Saturday Review of Literature in 1924, is now a Paris-based writer, would go onto become the first editor in chief of People magazine, as well as the editor of Time magazine, and also to serve as regional editor for the Americas, and then global editor-at-large for Reuters. No limit on the Perch, so we returned pretty low in the water. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Ahif you want me to, I can, but Im not going to be making any time; Ill be lucky to make two or three miles an hour going back out that way., Well, youll have to make a decision as to whether you will be hazarding your vessel or not, but youre probably one of the only vessels right now that can get to the scene. I read a report about a phenomena called the Three Sisters-rogue waves. In 2006, a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration study recreated the storm in a computer and discovered that the Fitzgerald and its floating companion, the Arthur M. Anderson, inadvertently steamed into the heart of the storm by taking the northern route across Lake Superior to avoid what they thought would be treacherous waves along the established, more direct southern route. )As if the aforementioned problems weren't enough, Northwestern Mutual had theFtizgeraldpartially rebuilt in her later years to handle thousands of extra tons of iron ore, which substantially raised the waterline, increasing the maximum draft of the ship, maximum weight of the ship and height of the deck above water. It's a national disgrace. The B-side on the single was The House You Live In.. But we were talking to him about seven and he said that everything was going fine. Both ships crews could feel the effects.Around 3:00 in the afternoon, both ships had passed Caribou Island, Ontario, home of the notorious Six Fathom Shoal, a sharpy rocky outcropping more than capable of tearing into the hull of a deep draft vessel in stormy weather. From what your reports are I can appreciate the conditions. In 2000, author Hugh Bishop pushed the "Three Sisters" theory about a trio of rogue waves that overwhelmed the Fitzgerald in quick succession. Improvements in personal lifesaving equipment have resulted in suits to protect sailors from hypothermia in Lake Superiors cold waters. Her owners wanted her to maximize revenue, but "The Lake it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy." MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa postulates rogue waves as possible based on the 2006 NOAA storm simulation. Captain Cooper, too, had always maintained that Captain McSorley knew his ship was compromised on the shoal, but had faith that his ship would make it to Whitefish Bay. Affirmative. He reduced speed to allow the Anderson to close the 17-mile gap between them. There's even a work of Fiction, SCP-1174, titled, and I quote, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Hull no. The grisliest discovery was of a giant oil slick floating atop the lake's surface. U.S. Coast Guard rescue vessel Woodrush took 21 hours to arrive on scene from the Duluth port. I then called the William Clay Ford to ask him if my phone was putting out a good signal and also if perhaps the Fitzgerald had rounded the point and was in shelter, after a negative report I called the Soo Coast Guard because I was sure something had happened to the Fitzgerald. Every expedition to the freighter has reported that there is no evidence of scraping, gouging or damage to the rudder or propeller, which should show on the overturned bottom of the stern. Quantity. By late autumn, writes Sproule (http://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/edmund-fitzgerald-40-years-later/), the Gales of November have usually set in on Superior, creating hazardous conditions for even large modern ships. A half hour later I heard the news. (Edmund Fitzgeraldin her early years as a coal firedsteel hulled steamship. The two ships were in radio contact. In a similar vein, Paul Hainault, a retired Michigan Tech University professor, postulated a seiche caused the ship to scrape the bottom of Superior Shoal early that morning and the weakened hull eventually gave out. Has anyone ever calculated how much shorter the normal route across Superior would have been had the Fitzgerald not changed course? Aware of a building November storm entering the Great Lakes from the great plains, Captain McSorley and Captain Cooper agreed to take the northerly course across Lake Superior, where they would be protected by highlands on the Canadian shore. Size & Medium. Cooper believes that from that point on, McSorley knew he was sinking. "We always had to go down and pump them out.". The shoal in fact may have been mis-mapped as it appeared to jut out a mile further than official maps showed, and the Fitzgerald may have hit it in this one-mile stretch. Bernie Cooper of the Anderson reported his concern for the Fitzgerald to the Coast Guard station in Sault Ste. Since no Coast Guard vessel capable of sailing in the conditions prevalent in eastern Lake Superior was available in the vicinity of the wreck, maintenance procedures were amended to ensure that cutters would be in a ready condition during the spring and fall periods of bad weather. Every year since the sinking, the Episcopal Mariners Church the Maritime Sailors Cathedral on East Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit, along the riverfront, has held a memorial service for the Edmund Fitzgerald crew. (A video of the once proud ship transiting the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Have you checked down?, Fitzgerald, we are about 10 miles behind you, and gaining about 1 1/2 miles per hour. This theory was advanced by the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) after the U.S. Coast Guard report and seems to be the most popular among mariners and armchair wreck investigators. Water poured in through a sudden hatch failure. Crafts USS Indianapolis (CA-35) "It was designed to haul a certain amount and they kept getting the Coast Guard to increase the load line." In July 1979, he would go onto co-author the book Great American Dreams: A Portrait of the Way We Are with the Washington Posts Robert Kaiser. This theory is the thought that the Fitzgerald hit the bottom near Caribou Island, ripping a hole in the ship. Your comment will appear after being approved. Various cars scatter the bottom of the river covered in grass and zebra muscles. In the steel towns to Gary's east, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburg, Bethlehem and others, urban decay also set in and still remains today (2021). Caribou Island is part of a large glacial moraine that accumulated south of Michipicoten Island. Of course, the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) blamed grounding on the not-well-marked Six Fathom Shoal northwest of Caribou Island. Fitzgerald, there is a target 19 miles ahead of us. Many theorize the ship unknowingly struck the poorly marked 6 Fathom Shoal on the island's north side, but that has never been conclusively proven. According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee never gives up her dead.. It had enough force to come down on the starboard lifeboat, pushing it into the saddles with a force strong enough to damage the bottom of the lifeboat. The second large sea put green water (the powerful center of a wave) on our bridge deck! Cooper later said he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. During that conversation, he stated that McSorley inadvertently left the microphone on when he said to someone in his pilothouse, Dont allow nobody on deck, also saying something about a vent that Woodard couldnt understand. It was originally discovered by sonar shortly after the sinking in 1975 and first documented by several expeditions in 1976 including one by Jean Michel Cousteau, son of famous oceanographer Jaques Cousteau. Having been a consultant and active member of the original Jacques Cousteau expedition in 1980 along with the raising of the bell 1994 expedition. The owners knew of the EF's structural problem, and had the steel already cut to effect yet another repair. The Fitzgerald being the faster took the lead, with the distance between the vessels ranging from 10 to 15 miles. The lifeboats recovered were unused. The iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank to the bottom of Lake Superior during a hurricane-like storm on the night of Nov. 10, 1975. While conditions were bad, with winds gusting to 50 knots and seas 12 to 16 feet, both Captains had often piloted their vessels in similar conditions. Not long after the search ended, years of arguments and disagreements over what could have caused theEdmund Fitzgeraldto sink have clouded up any hope of truly understanding what occurred the night of November 10, 1975 as the shipping companies, government agencies and sea fairers of the Great Lakes all have different theories and opinions that do not match. Five years later in 1980, Jacques Cousteaus famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. in 1980, Jacques Cousteau's famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. Ed Peewee Charles Ringwald and the late Terry Clements, a Detroit native who had played guitar for Lightfoot since the early 1970s, came up with the haunting guitar and steel riffs. From the time of its first voyage on Sept. 24, 1958, the ship set six records by carrying heavier and heavier loads. 18335 N. Whitefish Point Road Only one other vessel, the William Clay Ford, was able to leave the safety of Whitefish Bay to join in the search at the time. By this time, snow and rising spray had obscured the Fitzgerald from sight, visible 17 miles ahead on radar. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. His written report states: At this time I became very concerned about the Fitzgerald couldnt see his lights when we should have. Hinze, W.J., Allen, D.J., Fox, A.J., Sunwood, D., Woelk, T. and Green, A.G., 1992. Theorists have sized upon the permanent lay-up of the Fitzgerald sister ship, the Arthur Homer, in 1980 as indicative of structural deficiency both vessels.

Whipps Cross Hospital Rheumatology Phone Number, Avengers Fanfiction Peter Kidnapped By Aliens, Electric Boat Yard Hospital Phone Number, In General, Marital Satisfaction Tends To Quizlet, Imagery In Patrick Henry's Speech, Articles C