The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald · 11:59pm Nov 10th, 2024
On August 7, 1957, the Great Lakes Engineering Works of River Rouge, MI laid down hull number 301 for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Ten months later, the ship was launched and christened the Edmund Fitzgerald, named for the chairman of the board.
She was designed to fit the under-construction locks on the St. Lawrence Seaway, and at 729 feet (222m) she would just fit. As the flagship of the company, she was well-appointed, with a plush interior and the capability of carrying a few passengers, which she often did.
While her reign as Queen of the Lakes was short-lived (the SS Murray Bay took the title in 1959), she constantly set tonnage records throughout her sailing career, typically beating her own prior record. And while she could make it through the St. Lawrence locks, I don't know that she ever did; her principle purpose was to haul iron ore—in the form of taconite pellets—to the mills in Gary, Detroit, and Toledo.
For those of you who are used to ocean-going ships, you might notice the forward deckhouse and bridge. This was common practice on the Great Lakes until very recently (and even the modern ships tend to have a small forward deckhouse). Maneuvering is tight into many harbors, and the extra view over the bow really helps the crew.
Traditionally, that meant that the officers were housed in the front of the ship (along with the radio), while the engineering crew was located in the stern. Older lake freighters didn't have any way to get from bow to stern other than walk the deck, which was impossible in heavy weather; the Fitzgerald included a crew tunnel which runs fore to aft. In heavy weather, you can see that tunnel bend as the ship flexes.
It's also worth mention that much of the Great Lakes fleet is captive. While the Fitzgerald could have sailed into the Atlantic, I doubt it ever did, and the modern ore boats on the upper Great Lakes (Michigan, Huron, and Superior) cannot fit through the locks and access the ocean. As such, those ships are still constructed in the US, unlike most large ships.
While her 729 foot length only kept her the Queen of the Lakes title for a few years, the subsequent 730 foot length held for years, with vessels you've never heard of all tying that length (Wikipedia lists 15 boats of that length) until the Frankcliffe Hall beat it by inches in 1965, and it remained a game of inches until 1972 when the Steward J. Cort (still in service) raised the bar to 1,000 feet (306m).
The current champion is the Paul R. Tregurtha, launched in 1981, at 1,013 feet (309m).
The Mighty Fitz could load in four hours and unload in fourteen, which no doubt aided her seasonal records. Her largest single cargo was 27,402 long tons (you're on your own to convert that to metric; I don't know the difference between long tons, short tons, and standard tons). She was popular with boat watchers; one of her captains, Peter Pulcer, was known for playing music over the ship's intercom when she passed through the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, and giving audio commentary about the ship at the Soo Locks.
She was also popular with shippers and owners alike, since she was reliable, dependable, and carried a lot.
Ships on the Great Lakes can last a long time. The Great Lakes are freshwater, which minimizes corrosion. The Michipicoten, recently in the news due to cracking her hull in heavy weather on Lake Superior, was constructed in 1952, and she's a decade newer than the currently-oldest operating lake freighter (the Alpena). The St. Marys Challenger was launched in 1926 and is still active, although now as a barge, and the E. M. Ford was active from 1898 until 2008.
But it's the weather that gets them, and that was the case with the Edmund Fitzgerald.
On November 9, 1975, under command of Ernest McSorley the Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin with 26,116 tons of ore, bound for Zug Island in Detroit. A few hours later, she joined the Arthur M. Anderson, bound for Gary, Indiana. A storm was predicted to pass south of them, and neither captain was worried about the weather: it was typical for November on the Great Lakes.
The Arthur M Anderson
However, by 7pm that day, the National Weather Service started issuing gale warnings (winds up to 47 knots [54mph, 87km/h]); both ships altered course to put themselves closer to the shores of Ontario for some protection. They also slowed down.
Many captains on the Great Lakes don't slow down for storms.
By the early morning of November 10, the gale warning had been upgraded to a storm warning, with winds up to 50 knots (58mph, 93km/h), and the Fitzgerald passed the Anderson.
The weather worsened. The Anderson logged sustained wind speeds as high as 58 knots (67mph, 107km/h) with gusts up to 75 knots (86mph, 139km/h) and 25 foot (7.6m) waves, with one rogue wave logging in at 35 feet (11m). Snow cut visibility, and the Fitzgerald reported back that she was taking on water, and a railing was down. Later on, she lost her radar.
She relied on the Anderson to guide her on a course for Whitefish Bay. Not only had the Fitz lost some of her navigation instruments, but the radio beacon at Whitefish Point was also down due to the storm.
At 7:10 pm, Captain McSorley told the Anderson that "We are holding our own."
That was the last message she ever transmitted.
There are a lot of theories of what happened to her. I think that she was taking water into her cargo holds through the hatch covers, and at some point the bow went under a wave and just never came back up. It's very likely that she drove herself to the bottom.
The wreck lies in two pieces, close together. The bow is upright, while the stern is inverted but close to the main wreckage. Both lifeboats were recovered although it's not believed that either were launched—they were most likely torn from their davits as the ship went under.
No crew survived.
There was some speculation that the ship broke in half on the surface, and it might have. The Carl D Bradley, which is known to have broken in half, also has its two halves in close proximity at the bottom of Lake Michigan. However, the Daniel J Morell's two halves were five miles (8km) apart, as the stern section continued on its own before finally sinking.
Other theories include grounding and leaking from below, being hit by a rogue wave, or a phenomenon known as the 'three sisters,' a trio of waves that can wash over a ship and flood the decks faster than it can shed the water. It is known that the Fitzgerald sunk in the area of the storm where such a phenomenon was most likely, with a potential rogue wave height of 46 feet (14m). When loaded, her deck was only 11 feet (3.5m) above the water.
Her loss quickly became legend, and Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about her in 1976: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
In that song, he mentions the 'maritime sailor's cathedral.' That is a real place: the Mariners' Church of Detroit, founded in 1842. Every year, on the anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald's sinking, they ring the bell 29 times, once for each life lost.
Gordon Lightfoot passed away on May 1 last year, and that day they rang the bell thirty times: once for each member of the crew, and once for Gordon.
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I've been meaning to post a blog about the Fitzgerald on the anniversary of her sinking for years, and I finally remembered to do it
There's a number of other shipwrecks I'd like to talk about at some point in the future; both the storm that sank the Daniel J Morell and also wrecked her sister ship (she survived the storm but was so heavily damaged she never sailed again), or the heroic and slightly insane rescue of survivors from the Carl D Bradley.
There are also a number of other sea stories that are perhaps worthy of a blog post, such as the 1913 storm which took 12 ships, or the 1906 storm which took 20.
The Arthur M Anderson is still in service.
i.etsystatic.com/54338821/r/il/42d459/6413115575/il_794xN.6413115575_9mrg.jpg
I'm from Cleveland, so the EF is near and dear to my heart thanks to both the location and that haunting, wonderful song that is just rife with poignant poetry.
"Does anyone know
where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
"Fellas, it's been good to know you..."
I’ve heard the rumor they think that she had structural issues from being repeatedly overloaded. They think she snapped at the bottom of a wave and the bow just went straight down. As it wasn’t far from the surface at that point. The stern just got rolled and down she went. Still sad overall. I know when the Anderson arrives at the port of Duluth she has a unique horn single.
Despite how fascinating I find shipwrecks, I didn’t know most of this. Thanks for an informative read!
I was a kid when it happened. I didn't hear it on the news. I heard Gordon Lightfoot's song and heard it was a real wreck. I did not know it was a recent wreck for a long time after that. It was hard to wrap my head around that modern ships could be sunk by weather. We put men on the moon, yet a modern ship as huge as the Fitzgerald wasn't safe on the great lakes. Gordon's ode really made you feel like you were there. Poetry and music each really have a power to elicit emotion, combined it's a barrage to the guts. Thank you for remembering the Fitz and writing a blog about her.
i remember watching the news broadcast and seeing Walter Cronkite talking about the Edmund going down when i was a kid.
and latter in life as a truck driver i had time to stop at the maritime sailor's cathedral were the bell hangs to this day just standing there reading the names is chilling,
My dad was a merchant seaman for a good portion of his life, working his way up to his master's papers, and I (only a lowly AB) shipped out a few times as a kid before the profession withered away under foreign flags, so I don't remember a time when I didn't know about the Big Fitz. The story sill gets me, though.
Coincidentally, another MOL ship, one of that class, snapped in half in the Arabian Sea a while back. Purely a matter of a slight design flaw and the right (or wrong) sort of waves. MOL Comfort, I think it was? Most expensive disaster at sea in history, but thankfully her crew all made it off safely.
Thanks for the history lesson!
It's always good to learn more about one of the key industries that made America the country it is. Now, the steelmaking industry may practically shut down if the sale of U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel and the associated $2.7 Billion investment doesn't go through.
As a Kansas native, reading about this is as close to an ore ship on the Great Lakes as I want to get. Brrr.
https://www.startribune.com/edmond-fitzgerald-wreck-radio-play-on-anniversary-dave-nimmer-mpr/601178399
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You got no sympathy for US Steel from me after what they pulled after they bought Stelco. Also I think the deal went through.
Gordon Lightfoot was an especially good songwriter. His song about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was a great tribute to the crew. May they all rest in peace.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
That line has always confused me. They don't say that they ring it once for each life lost, they say that they ring it 29 times for each life. When I was much younger, I wondered, "Do they really ring it 800-odd times?"
This is one of two songs that I never skip, and I always hear through to the end. (The other is "My Friends" as read by Hank Snow.)
It's been a little over 35 years since I've been there, but the S.S. Meteor Whaleback Ship Museum in Superior, WI had one of the Edmund Fitzgerald's life boats on display. I have no idea if it's still there, but it was a chilling sight as the bow of it was crumpled.
Taconite....I can hear Sonata wailing about that. "SO MANY TACOS...GONE!!!!!"
Aria: "No you doofus, it's just rocks."
As for short/long tons: short ton is just an English ton, long ton is a Metric ton.
The Ed Fitz made for a good song and a good beer. :B
It is a sad anniversary. The 50th anniversary is next year.
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Michigander, so same. We used to live near the Blue Water Bridge, and watched the boats pass seemingly close enough to touch.
It is a magnificent song. We learned it in elementary school and it's stuck with me ever since.
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That is possible; both the Morell and the Bradley failed structurally, and it's very possible that the Fitz did, as well.
Yeah, it was shallower than the ship was long; I think she's in 500-some feet of water.
She's not the only one, IIRC; some of the captains have their own special salutes.
Also, I hadn't thought of this before, but I know that trains have different kinds of horns (usually Leslie or Nathan, with some number of 'chimes'), and I suppose the same holds true for the various lake boats. I do know that I can spend hours watching ships arrive at Duluth on YouTube
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You're welcome! It's a fascinating topic, and there's hours and hours of YouTube videos, if you're interested. Not that long ago I learned some new things about the Bradley sinking and rescue from one (can't remember the channel, unfortunately, or I'd link it).
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Depending on where you lived, it might not have made much in the news (certainly, in the Great Lakes states it did). I don't know if I knew about it before hearing the song, but I wasn't alive when it happened, and learned the song in elementary school.
The Great Lakes can be brutal, as many have learned. We haven't lost any on the lakes since the Fitz, although it was a close call with the Michipicoten this year. If it had happened in bad weather, she might have gone down.
I suppose it's a worthwhile reminder that for all our technology, Mother Nature can still wreck our things.
Oh yeah, poetry and music hit in a way that a dry recitation of facts just don't. I can give you the wave measurements, but that's not the same as hearing Gordon sing about the weather to give you a feeling what it was actually like aboard the ship.
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Found the YouTube clip
I've never been to the Maritime Sailor's Cathedral, but I think I need to go. I had a similar feeling in the cathedral in Edinburg where they had plinths which contained books of all the Scottish dead in war
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Man, that would be one of those things where it'd even hit harder as a seaman. I can't help but wonder what you were thinking as the news of the El Faro started circulating.
Funny how the Fitz stuck in the collective consciousness more than some of the others (no doubt Gordon Lightfoot's excellent song did much to influence it); there've been plenty of wrecks on the Great Lakes and some of them were more harrowing. I suppose the same goes for oceangoing ships; practically everybody knows about the Titanic, but few know of the Andrea Doria or the Empress of Ireland.
Huh, that's one I'd never heard of.
I remember some time back watching a video about the loss of the Derbyshire, and speculation of a design flaw which caused her sinking, 'cause one of her sister ships broke in half and they thought the same fate might have befallen her. Instead, she just took on water in the forward hold until the bow drove under and never came back up.
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You're welcome!
We'll see how it goes. The American steel industry is a shadow of its former self, but at the same time there's still mines and plants on the Great Lakes, and I expect that many of them will remain for a long time to come, since it's still cheaper to transport the ore to a local(ish) mill rather than ship it overseas and get finished product back.
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There might be more in this vein coming up in the future. Plenty of other Great Lakes stories to tell
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Ooh, I hope that they can make that work. I'm gonna see if I can find the link that the article promised.
EDIT: found it!
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/11/08/edmund-fitzgeralds-final-voyage-captured-in-radio-play
(it's at the bottom of the page)
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I've also heard words about Severstal's new ownership of Rouge Steel (which is probably where the Fitz was headed, since I think Rouge Steel is the only steel plant on Zug Island).
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He is. He and Harry Chapin both, if we're being honest.
It was indeed. And did you know that he originally called the Mariners' Church 'musty,' but after performing there in 1985, he promised to change the lyric, and did; henceforth it was 'rustic'.
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if you can find it watch the video of when i think it was NUMA brought the bell up from the wreck.
the moment it broke the serf ice of the water it started ringing the hole ship goes quiet.
edit
i am so pissed the video has been edited it now doe not show were the bell brakes water .
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I have changed it in the blog post to be more clear, but it is in fact once for each life.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I never get to listen to stations where this song might come on, but if I did, it would also be one where I'd be listening all the way through. Although in the interests of full disclosure, the same applies to any Gordon Lightfoot song.
Never heard My Friends to my recollection; I'll have to check that out.
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I'm not sure where the two lifeboats are these days. When I was a kid, one of them was in the Valley Camp in Sault Ste. Marie. Wikipedia says that they have two, so maybe they got the other one, or else there were more than two lifeboats recovered.
As I recall, the one in the Valley Camp was torn in half.
I don't remember where I read it, but in some story about Great Lakes sailors, one of them said that if the ship were sinking in a storm he wouldn't bother to try and get to a lifeboat. What's left of those lifeboats is maybe the reason why.
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Silly Sonata, taconite isn't for eating. Unless you've got a serious iron deficiency, then maybe.
Ah, that's good to know. Measurements are confusing sometimes.
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True indeed
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It is, and I coulda postponed this blog post until then, but the truth is that next year I'd probably forget.
I loved that song as a kid, but was very confused by the name of the ship. Until my dad corrected me, I thought it was called 'The Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald'.
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The Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald would be a very different song, I think.
Very interesting. Thank you for marking this anniversary with your blog.
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You're welcome!
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Oh yeah, El Faro hit hard. American flagged ship, American crew, so rare nowadays and all lost. The sea is unforgiving.
Brings to mind another song, White Squall by Stan Rogers. The Lakes are unforgiving, too.
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I grew up in Las Vegas and had never heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald before reading Silver Glow's Journal. It ended up sending me down a rabbit hole reading several books on both the ship and lake freighters in general, since that whole world was foreign to my desert dwelling self.
8 years later I'm working as a trucker and adventuring across the country and it's really cool seeing big industry like the lake freighters or the gigantic barges along the Columbia River in the west.
Silver also gave me a Jeopardy contestant's knowledge of Southwest Michigan just from obsessively following her on Google Maps, so thank you for that. XD
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49 is a square-number.
History lessons like this make me miss Michigan and the Great Lakes all the more. Thanks, Admiral.