Edmund Fitzgerald

[MDH]

40 years ago today the ore carrier Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior.
The 729 foot ship sank with all 29 crew members in a storm with 75 mph winds and 25 foot seas.
The ship lays in 520 feet of water and is the grave of the 29 man crew.
Say a prayer for the crew and their families.

[yellowperil]

Listening to Gordon Lightfoots rendition, gives a wonderful tribute to this tragedy.

"When the skies of November turn gloomy". Also the phrase " ..the big lake they call gitchigumi" These phrases and all the words to this song
are spot on.

[ledhedsymbols]

Love that song...
I always thought of it when we hit rough water in the Navy.

[sand_man]

Lightfoot's lyrical arrangement for that song, really is a stroke of genius! One of my faves!

[MBAtarga]

I remember when I was much younger - I couldn't understand how such a large ship could sink from bad weather on a lake. Later on in my years - I realized just how big that lake was!

[Oh Haha]

I remember it well. Growing up near Lake Huron it was pretty surreal as we had seen her plenty of times.

Not to be Davie Downer but this time was very dark for my family. My older brother was killed in a car crash on Nov. 1. The song came out about a year later and I couldn't listen to it as it just brought back such bad memories.

Although I didn't know any of the crew I have always felt a strange connection to the ship. She and my brother were the same age, 17.

[KNS]

I know I've posted this in the past but many years ago I had a room mate who was a wireless operator on an oil tanker (before I knew him). He had some pretty bad burns on his face so imagined he had suffered a possible tragedy at sea though I never asked him about it.

Every evening at bedtime I could hear from his room him quietly playing Gordon Lightfooot's song. He was a heck of nice guy...

[flipper35]

We were up at Lake Superior this year. The swells in the harbor were larger than I thought they would be and the cars on the Madeline Island ferry were covered from the waves breaking over the sides and that was just a windy day near the shore. I can't imagine the 75mph winds.

[Oh Haha]

A bucket list item of mine is to travel on a lake freighter. Of course, if it even starts to sprinkle I'd probably freak out and have to be confined to a safe room.

There is something mythical and majestic about those ships for me. I'm fascinated by them but yet a bit afraid.

[1990C4S]

80 MPH wind, 25-40 ft waves....and no Mayday signal. It must have happened fast but they likely knew it was coming.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by Oh Haha

A bucket list item of mine is to travel on a lake freighter. Of course, if it even starts to sprinkle I'd probably freak out and have to be confined to a safe room.

There is something mythical and majestic about those ships for me. I'm fascinated by them but yet a bit afraid.

Maybe on the deck with preserver in one hand with one of those survival life boats in the other hand? That water is cold also.

[Oh Haha]

Good point flipper!

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by yellowperil

Listening to Gordon Lightfoots rendition, gives a wonderful tribute to this tragedy.

I've been a Gordon Lightfoot fan since his first album came out, but that is one song I cannot stand. The plodding pace and that horrible guitar are like nails on a blackboard to me.

[varmint]

i've stood on the shore during a lake superior storm. no way in hell i'd want to be out on the water.

[sammyg2]

I remember a long time ago:

one guy said to the other: your life is so pathetic, Gordon Lightfoot is writing a song about it.

Or something along those lines.
Thot it was funnier than all get out.

[MRM]

They hold a memorial at Split Rock Lighthouse (near Duluth) every year on November 10. They darken the light, read the names and ring the ship's bell. It's the only time the lighthouse goes dark and they allow visitors to walk all the way up to the top of the lighthouse into the lamp room. It is supposed to be very moving. I just heard about it and it's on my bucket list now.

One of the local meteorologists was on the radio talking about the storm. He said that the legend it was as strong as a hurricane is true. It did have more than 70 mile an hour sustained winds and the barometer dropped to hurricane levels. He is a bit of an Edmund Fitzgerald history buff, so he told us what is known about the wreck. Even though the ship was later located in about 550 feet of water, we don't know much about how or why it sank. One theory is that the waves were so big that they engulfed the ship, it lost buoyancy, and went down. A nearby ship reported three "rogue" waves of unusual size about the same time the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, but no one really knows. As the song says, it might have broken up, it might have capsized, or it might have gone down in rough water. The meteorologist said that as bad as the storm was, it really wasn't all that unusually powerful for Lake Superior. But the Edmund Fitzgerald was in the worst possible spot in the storm at the worst possible time.

I was too young to remember when it happened, but I have a vague recollection of hearing about it. I must have been in about junior high when I read a long article about the wreck when it was finally located.

Years later one of my college business groups toured the corporate headquarters of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company in Milwaukee. We were allowed into the real board room to imagine ourselves among the captains of industry. I turned and found myself staring into a portrait of a distinguished old man who the name plate said was Edmund Fitzgerald. It seemed like a funny/odd coincidence but the tour guide came over and explained that this was the Edmund Fitzgerald for whom the ship was named. He was the Chairman and CEO of the company at the time and the ship was part of the company's investment portfolio. I read later that he never really got over the loss of the ship and was a damaged man after the wreck.

[MDH]

I was a sophomore at Michigan Tech at Houghton in 1975.
When the Fitzgerald wrecked there was a lot of discussion about it in the engineering department.
The prevailing theory (at that time) was that a multiplicity of issues caused the sinking.
The hull was weakend from years of overloading beyond design specifications, deck hatch failure which allowed flooding and rogue waves that caused hull failure.
The captain of the Arthur Anderson, which was in the same general area, reported that several rogue waves, of possibly 50+ feet, rolled over his ship shortly before the Fitzgerald disappeared.
Whatever happened, we will never know.......

[Reiver]

I grew up on Lake Michigan and the view from our picture windows was the lake. When I finally saw the ocean I was unimpressed...looks just like the lake.
The Great Lakes currents are totally wind driven and the problem for ships in storms is the rogue waves that come at you from odd directions....you can face into the prevailing wind/sea but not a guarantee you won't be hit abeam.
We'd scuba dive on wrecks in my teens. Lots of large vessels to choose from some from the 1800's. The Wheeler, 3 masted wooden schooner, is only at about 50 ft.
Cold water tho under 6 feet even in the dead of summer.

[unclebilly]

This summer after racing at Brainerd, I stopped at the Lake Superior Maritime Museum in Diluth. Really cool museum and worth a visit.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I've been a Gordon Lightfoot fan since his first album came out, but that is one song I cannot stand. The plodding pace and that horrible guitar are like nails on a blackboard to me.

Thank you. I feel exactly the same way.

It loses me right here:

"As the big freighters go it was bigger than most"


Ouch.