Hi everybody, I am Vincent and you're listening
to The Lighthouse Lowdown. Welcome to the show,
episode 89. As you might have heard, Emily was
not in the introduction. Today is a solo episode
from me. So, Emily's going through quite a bit
right now. We are planning the wedding, living
with family. Thinking about a honeymoon. We're
looking at financials. Thinking about buying
a house. Today is the day of her bridal shower.
So congratulations to Emily. And there's a lot
going on. So I thought I might give her a break
and record a solo episode today. I say all this
because our listeners, many of you have reached
out in different capacities and shown an interest
and shown support for us. And I want you to know
that we appreciate that, both Emily and I. So
today you're going to hear me talking. Today
you're going to hear me sipping coffee. Cue now.
I've got some double shot of espresso with some
honey in it. You're going to hear me swatting
away flies. You're going to hear me sipping water,
whatever happens. I've got no coverage, so it's
you and me. Welcome to episode 89, and we'll
just dive in. So no history buoy today because
the episode itself is not specifically a lighthouse.
There is a lighthouse involved in this story.
A couple, if you were to read a little deeper,
but today we're talking about the wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald. So I'm going to read this
first. I'm going to read a couple of things.
The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a song
written, composed and performed by Canadian singer
songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot. to commemorate
the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald
on Lake Superior on November 10th, 1975. Lightfoot
drew his inspiration from Newsweek's article
on the event, The Cruelest Month, which it published
on November 24th of 1975. Lightfoot considers
the song to be his finest work. So we're going
to talk a little bit more about Gordon Lightfoot.
Also, I wouldn't know about the sinking of this
ship if it were not for this song. And I think
that's kind of what drew me to this content.
We have some silliness in our family. So motorcycle
rides and hiking and other grand adventures,
I've been able to go on with my dad and my brother
and the rest of my family, depending on what
the adventure is. There's been times where we
joked around and we sang sea shanties and just
kind of things that we could remember, you know,
shave his belly with a rusty razor. Lots of,
you know, what would you do? I don't even remember
that. It was on The Office. What was that? Hold
on. Let's see. Shave his belly with a rusty razor.
Oh, the song Drunken Sailor by the Irish Rovers,
1994. Way hanging up she rises, way hanging up
she rises, way hanging up she rises early in
the morning. You may remember that from the show
The Office. where Dwight thinks he's steering
the ship while they're out on a river or a lake
cruise for the evening. It's a very good episode.
It's a very funny show. So the point is, sea
shanties have been in my family, ironically,
and one of the things that comes up on my Spotify
time to time is the song The Wreck of the Edmund
Fitzgerald. So I've listened to it a couple times
lately, and Gordon Lightfoot has some other good
music. The song, here's another entry I'm reading,
originally came on Lightfoot's 1976 album, Summertime
Dream. The single version hit number one in Canada,
where Lightfoot is from, on November 20th, 1976,
barely a year after the disaster. So that's interesting
to me. It was in the media, the social media,
if you will, of the 70s right away. In the United
States, the song reached number one in Cashbox
and number two for two weeks on the Billboard
Hot 100. Behind Rod Stewart's Tonight is the
Night, making it Lightfoot's second most successful
single behind the song Sundown. So I have that
queued up right now on my Spotify. I'm going
to do something we've never done before. Any
episode is demonetized if we play... songs, things
like that. And I don't care because we don't
make, uh, we are not looking for money on this,
on this podcast and on this episode. So I'm going
to play the song for you now, the wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald through this audio, and then
we'll be back to discuss. The legend lives on
from the Chippewa on down at the big lake they
call Gitche Gumee. The lake, it is said, never
gives up her dead when the skies of November
turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore, 26 ,000
tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed
empty. That good ship and true was a bone to
be chewed when the gales of November came early.
The ship was the pride of the American side coming
back from some bill in Wisconsin. As the big
freighters go, it was bigger than most with a
crew and good captain well seasoned. concluding
some terms with a couple of steel firms when
they left fully loaded for Cleveland. Then later
that night when the ship's bell rang, could it
be the north wind they'd been feeling? The Witch
of November comes stealing So that was The Wreck
of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot.
Next, we'll be listening to Candy Shop by 50
Cent. Just kidding. Ha ha. I make myself laugh.
So that's quite a piece of art. It's a long song,
but I had to play the whole thing. And what I've
actually done, I've gone and printed out the
lyrics. I was going to read through them. Um,
but I think I'm going to skip it because the
song itself is over six minutes and you just
heard it. So I, I love that song. Um, I've listened
to it a couple of times. One of the things that
jumps out to me is as I learned this story, um,
for the most part, uh, this is a pretty accurate
retelling of the story. And of course, Gordon
Lightfoot saw that article we discussed and that's
what made all this happen. So some of the same
source material. One of the verses says, does
anyone know where the love of God goes when the
waves turn the minutes to hours? There's a lot
in there. So what I'm going to do today, we're
going to talk some more about this sinking outside
of just the song by Lightfoot. The real story
of the Edmund Fitzgerald is very interesting.
Of course, there are many ships that have sunk
on the Great Lakes throughout recorded history.
Many, many ships. The reason that the Edmund
Fitzgerald is so well known is because of that
song and because of the story itself. So we're
going to talk about the story. So the Fitzgerald
was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank
in Lake Superior during the storm, a storm. on
November 10th of 1975, with the loss of the entire
crew of 29 men. When it was launched in 1958,
it was the largest ship in North America's Great
Lakes and remains the largest ship to have ever
sunk there. Eventually, after sinking, it was
located, and we're going to talk about how that
went, but the U .S. Navy used aircraft with the
ability to detect magnetic anomalies in a large
mass of metal. on the base of the lake was soon
found. So for 17 years, the Fitzgerald carried
iron ore from mines, several locations, but mostly
from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to ironworks
in Detroit, Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, and other
Great Lakes ports. Really, it was a workhorse.
It was always running, except for in the wintertime
when the lakes freeze over. So carrying a full
load of cargo of iron ore pellets, Captain McSorley,
Ernest M. McSorley, in command, she embarked
on her final voyage from Superior, Wisconsin,
near Duluth, on the afternoon of November 9th,
1975. En route to a steel mill near Detroit,
the Edmund Fitzgerald joined a second freighter,
the SS Arthur M. Anderson. By the next day, the
two ships were caught in a severe storm. together
on Lake Superior with near hurricane force winds
and waves up to 30 feet high. Shortly after 7
.10 p .m., Edmund Fitzgerald suddenly sank in
Canadian waters at a depth of 530 feet. The distance
closest was about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay,
and under normal operation, top speed, the Edmund
Fitzgerald could have covered that distance in
just over one hour. So it was darn close to safety.
So the Edmund Fitzgerald previously reported
being in significant difficulty to a nearby vessel.
Quote, I have a bad list, lost both radars, and
I'm taking on heavy seas over the deck. One of
the worst seas I've ever been in. However, no
distress signals were sent before she sank. Captain
McSorley's last message at 7 .10 p .m. was to
the Arthur M. Anderson. Quote, we are holding
our own. Her crew of 29 perished and no bodies
were recovered. The exact cause of the sinking
remains unknown, which is part of the interest
of the story. Though many books, studies, and
expeditions have been in examination. Edmund
Fitzgerald may have been swamped. It suffered.
Structural failure or potentially topside damage,
or maybe it grounded on a shoal, or maybe it
suffered from a combination of these, or perhaps
something else. In my reading, there are many
films, documentaries, books, articles written
throughout the history from 1975 and since then,
different research that's been done, different
data that's been collected, and different suppositions
of what's gone on in the sinking of the ship.
The disaster is one of the best known in history
of the Great Lakes shipping, in part because
of Gordon Lightfoot's song. Lightfoot wrote the
hit song after reading an article, The Cruelest
Month, as we mentioned. The sinking led to the
changes in Great Lakes shipping regulations and
practices that included mandatory survival suits,
depth finders, positioning systems, increased
freeboard, and more frequent inspection of the
vessels. So one thing I'll say here, I think
it's a good time to fit it in. I may have noted
this later in my notes. I have quite a few notes
today, and I'll be doing some reading. But Lightfoot,
I think he noticed that the Edmund Fitzgerald,
which is spelled E -D -M -U -N -D, was misspelled
Edmund in the article, The Cruelest Month. So
I think... And maybe that's lore. There's a little
bit of lore that surrounds the sinking of this
ship. But I think that's why he decided to write
the song. He was influenced, or at least the
source I read said that Lightfoot was influenced
to write the song because, of course, the entire
crew were lost. And in memoriam, it was unfortunate
that the name of the ship was even misspelled.
So the next thing I'd like to talk about is some
history. of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was
on the seas, the Great Lakes, like I mentioned,
17 years before it did sink. So design and construction.
The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company
of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, invested in the construction
of the Edmund Fitzgerald. In 1957, they contracted
a company called the Great Lakes Engineering
Works, G -L -E -W, of Michigan to design and
construct the ship. And what they wanted to do
is build the largest ship that they could that
could still be applicable to pass through the
requirements of the St. Lawrence Seaway. So it
was, quote, within a foot of the maximum length
allowed for passage through the soon -to -be
-completed St. Lawrence Seaway. The ship's value
at the time was $7 million United States dollars,
which is equivalent to about $60 million today,
2025. Edmund Fitzgerald was on the first, the
ship was the first Laker built to the maximum
size, which we talked about, which is 730 feet
long, 75 feet wide, and had a 25 -foot draft.
The vertical height of the hull was 39 feet.
Hull depth, which is the height inside of the
cargo hold, was 33 feet and 4 inches. The ship
had a dead weight capacity of 26 ,000 long tons
and a 729 foot long hull. It was the longest
ship in the Great Lakes, earning her the title
the Queen of the Lakes. And that title was held
until 1959 when a longer ship was launched, the
SS Murray Bay. So the Fitzgerald had three cargo
holds. And there were 21 watertight or maybe
potentially not watertight cargo hatches. Each
of those hatches, 11 foot by 48 feet, excuse
me. And they were made of 5 16th inch thick steel.
So quite a robust build from what I know. I'm
not, I don't know a lot about ships, but this
sounds like, it sounds like a diversified ship
that was built for this purpose. So originally
it was coal fired, the boilers, that of course
made steam to propel the vessel, were converted
to burn oil in the winter layup of 1971 and 72.
By the standards of typical ore freighters, the
interior of the Fitzgerald was actually really
luxurious. Her J .L. Hudson Company design furnishings
included deep pile carpeting, tiled bathrooms,
drapes over portholes, and leather swivel chairs
in the guest lounge. There are two guest staterooms
for passengers. Air conditioning extended to
the cruise quarters also, which featured more
amenities than usual. A large galley and a fully
stocked pantry supplied meals for two dining
rooms. Edmund Fitzgerald's pilot house was outfitted
with state -of -the -art nautical equipment and
a beautiful map room. The naming of the Edmund
Fitzgerald is kind of interesting. So the company
who paid to build it, the Northwestern Mutual,
wanted to name the ship after its president and
chairman of the board. His name, Edmund Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald's grandfather and great uncles had
been lake captains, and his father owned the
Milwaukee Dry Dock Company, which built and repaired
ships. So they had some seawater and some lake
water in their blood. Fitzgerald had attempted
to dissuade the naming of the ship after himself,
as you must dissuade. He proposed the names of
the Sentinel, Seaway, Milwaukee, and Northwestern.
The board was resolute, and the Edmund abstained
from voting, but the other 36 board members voted
unanimously to name the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
More than 15 ,000 people attended the Edmund
Fitzgerald's christening and launch ceremony
on June 7th of 1958. The event was plagued by
misfortunes. When Edmund Fitzgerald's wife tried
to christen the ship by smashing a champagne
bottle over the bow, which many of us have seen
in film and perhaps in real life, it took her
three attempts to break it, which of course is
bad luck. Another gentleman... Jennings B. Frazier
of Toledo suffered a heart attack and died at
the event. The delay of 36 minutes followed while
the shipyard crew struggled to release the keel
blocks. Not so smooth, and upon sideways launch,
the ship created a large wave, dousing the spectators,
and then crashed into a pier before righting
itself. The witnesses later said they swore the
ship was, quote, trying to climb right out of
the water. The career of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
So I've taken some highlights here out of some
content, so I'm just going to say some things
that I thought were most interesting. So the
Fitzgerald was a record -setting warhorse, often
beating her own milestones. for speed and whatnot
and hauling. So she set the seasonal haul record
six different times. She earned nicknames including
The Fits, The Pride of the American Side, The
Mighty Fits, The Toledo Express, The Big Fits,
and someone said The Titanic of the Great Lakes,
although I'm skeptical on that one until maybe
after it had sank. A round trip for the ship
between Superior, Wisconsin and Detroit, Michigan
usually took her five days and she averaged 47
similar trips per season. She was hauling. The
vessel's usual route was between Superior, Wisconsin
and Toledo, Ohio, although her port of destination
could vary. By November of 1975, Edmund Fitzgerald
had logged an estimated 748 trips on the Great
Lakes and covered more than a million miles.
a distance roughly equivalent to 44 trips around
this world. Coffee. So up until a few weeks before
her loss, passengers had traveled on board as
company guests. Hi. Emily's here to say hello.
Things are falling apart with the bridal shower
and we're making do. Do you need help? No, it's
nothing is allowing us to get in. So maybe hosting
it here. Okay. Let me know if you need help.
Our fans can wait. I could play the song again.
Buy us six more minutes. Oh, the door to the
garage also broke. Okay. Fantastic. I got some
things to fix when we're done recording here,
folks. Much like the christening of the Edmund
Fitzgerald. So far, the bridal shower of today
has been plagued with struggle. All right, folks,
we're back. So 44 trips around the world, a million
miles. Okay, so she traveled with... Give me
a moment, folks. Company guests. So guests could
ride along, and I don't know how these guests
were selected or who they knew. But some of the
information that's been collected, it was quite
the experience. Stewards treated the guest to
the entire VIP routine. The cuisine was reportedly
excellent, and the snacks were always available
in the lounge. Hell yeah. A small but well -stocked
kitchenette provided the drinks. Once each trip,
a captain held a candlelight dinner for the guests,
complete with mess -jacketed stewards. and special
clam digger punch. I don't know what that was,
but I bet you it was lit up with rum. Because
of her size, appearance, string of records, and
quote, DJ captain, Edmund Fitzgerald became a
favorite of boat watchers throughout her career.
Although Captain Peter Pulser was in command
of the Edmund Fitzgerald on trips when cargo
records were set, he is best remembered for piping
music day and night over the ship's intercom
system. especially when passing through St. Clair
and Detroit rivers. While navigating the Sioux
Locks, he would often come out of the pilot house
and use a bullhorn to entertain tourists with
commentary and details about the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Of course, it was quite the ship, so he had quite
a bit to say. Some mishaps happened as the ship
was in its service life. The vessel once ran
aground in 1969 and collided with the SS, oh
boy, the SS Hochelaga, H -O -C -H -E -L -A -G
-A, sounds German, in 1970. Later the same year,
she struck the wall of a lock. An accident repeated
again in 1973 and 1974. On January 7th of 1974,
she lost her original bow anchor, oopsie, in
the Detroit River. None of these mishaps were
considered serious or unusual, though. because
freshwater ships have a tough life. In fact,
freshwater ships are built to last more than
half a century. And when the Edmund Fitzgerald
sank, it's estimated that she had a long career
still ahead of her. Let's talk about the sinking.
So there's lots of things you could look up,
including the map of the sinking and where the
ship was eventually found. But the final voyage
and wreck, The final voyage was almost completed,
which is really, really unfortunate. Let's talk
about the wreck. So at the time, Captain was
Ernest M. McSorley. He was the last captain of
the Edmund Fitzgerald, and he did end up perishing
along with 28 other members of the crew on that
date, November 10th, 1975. So the Fitzgerald
left Superior, Wisconsin at 2 .15 p .m. on the
afternoon. Excuse me. On the afternoon of November
9th, under the command of McSorley, she was en
route to a steel mill on Zug Island near Detroit,
Michigan, with a cargo of 26 ,116 long tons of
tankonite ore pellets. Takonite, excuse me. Tako.
And soon reached the full... Coffee break. soon
reached her full speed of 16 .3 miles per hour.
At around 5 p .m., the Fitzgerald joined the
second freighter we discussed, the Arthur M.
Anderson, destined for Gary, Indiana, and they
had left out of Two Harbors, Minnesota. The weather
forecast was not unusual for November, which
is rough, and the National Weather Service predicted
that a storm would pass through just south of
Lake Superior at 7 a .m. on November 10th. As
we know, forecasts are incorrect sometimes, and
things do change. The SS Wilfred Sykes, another
ship, loaded opposite of the Edmund Fitzgerald
at the Burlington Northern Dock No. 1 and departed
at 4 .15 p .m. about two hours after the Fitzgerald
for its own adventure. In contrast to the National
Weather Service forecast, Captain Dudley J. Paquette
of the Wilfred Sykes predicted that the major
storm would directly cross Lake Superior. From
the outset, he chose a route that took advantage
of the protection offered by the lake's north
shore to avoid the worst effects of the storm.
The crew of the Sykes followed radio conversations
between Fitzgerald and Anderson, the two freighters,
during the first part of their ship, and overheard
their captains deciding to take the regular Lake
Carriers Association downbound route, more central
to the lake. Oh, my goodness. The National Weather
Service altered its forecast at 7 p .m., issuing
gale warnings for the whole of Lake Superior.
So something, I don't know if it's going to come
up again, something I read is that winds almost
always come from the north to the south on Lake
Superior, and one of the factors that played
into the weather of this day was unusual winds,
unusual waves, and a non -typical pattern. So
Arthur M. Anderson and the Fitzgerald altered
their course as the storm began and the forecast
changed to go northward to also seek shelter
along the Ontario shore. They encountered the
winter storm at 1 a .m. on November 10th. Fitzgerald
reported winds of 60 miles an hour and waves
10 feet high at that time. Captain Paquette,
who we discussed to the Sykes. reported that
after 1 a .m. he overheard McSorley say that
he had reduced the ship's speed because of the
rough conditions. Paquette said he was stunned
to hear that from McSorley, who was not known
for turning aside or slowing down, and he stated,
quote, we're going to try to get some lee, excuse
me, we're going to try for some lee from Isle
Royale. You're walking away from us anyway. I
can't stay with you. So... The ship was not doing
well, the Fitzgerald, and it was surprising that
the captain, known for being a hard -nosed captain,
especially in storms, was saying these things.
At 2 a .m., the National Weather Service upgraded
its warnings from gale to storm, forecasting
winds from 40 to 58 miles per hour. Until then,
the Fitzgerald had followed the Anderson, which
was traveling at a constant 14 .6 miles per hour,
but the faster Fitzgerald pulled ahead around
3 a .m. As the storm center passed over the ships,
they experienced shifting winds and wind speeds
temporarily dropping as the wind direction changed
from northeast to south and then northwest. So
the eye of the storm is usually it's kind of
a weird calm and an unstable region. So that's
what they're seeing here also. After 1 .50 p
.m., the Anderson logged winds of 58 miles per
hour. Wind speeds again picked up rapidly and
began to snow at 2 .45pm, reducing visibility.
Arthur M. Anderson lost sight of the Edmund Fitzgerald,
which at the time was about 16 miles ahead. Shortly
after 3 .30pm, Captain McSorley radioed the Arthur
McAnderson, M. Anderson rather, to report that
the Edmund Fitzgerald was taking on water and
had lost two vent covers and a fence railing.
The vessel had also developed a list. Two of
the Edmund Fitzgerald's six bilge pumps ran continuously
to discharge shipped water. McSorley said that
he would slow his ship down so that Arthur M.
Anderson could close the gap between them. In
a broadcast shortly afterwards, the United States
Coast Guard warned all shipping that the Sioux
locks had been closed and they should seek safe
anchorage. Shortly after 4 .10 p .m., McSorley
called the Anderson again to report a radar failure
and asked Anderson to keep track of them. Fitzgerald,
effectively blind, slowed to let Anderson come
within a 10 -mile range so that she could receive
radar guidance from the other ship. For a time,
the Anderson directed Fitzgerald towards relative
safety of Whitefish Bay. Then, at 4 .39 p .m.,
McSorley contacted the U .S. Coast Guard Station
in Grand Marais, Michigan. They were inquiring
whether Whitefish Point Light and Navigation
Beacon were operational. The U .S. Coast Guard
replied that their monitoring equipment indicated
that both instruments were inactive. McSorley
then hailed any ships in the Whitefish Point
area to report the state of navigational aids,
receiving an answer from Captain Cedric Woodard
of Avifors. between 5 and 5 .30 p .m. that the
Whitefish Point light was on, but not the radio
beacon. Woodard testified to the Marine Board
that he overheard McSorley say, don't allow anybody
on deck, as well as something about a vent that
Woodard could not have understood. Sometime later,
McSorley told Woodard, I have a bad list, I have
lost both radars, and I am taking heavy seas
over the deck. in one of the worst seas I have
ever been in. Now, here's an aside. I found a
document from the United States Coast Guard on
the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and I'm
going to read this page to you in regards to
Whitefish Point Light. The Aids to Navigation
Monitoring Equipment at Salt Ste. Marie. I think
I'm saying that wrong. S -A -U -L -T -S -T -E.
For now, I'll say Salt. At that Coast Guard station
is fitted with a paper tape recording merchant.
My goodness. Mechanism. But there are no indicator
records for 10th of November. There is no requirement
that a permanent record of the monitoring equipment
be maintained. The records of the commander,
9th Coast Guard District, indicate that Whitefish
Point Light. was automated and unmanned on the
11th of June, 1970. This is one of the first
aids in the area to be automated. Immediately
following the automation, several outages were
experienced. However, they were attributed to
the newness and complexity of the automation
equipment. Between 1st of June, 1973 and 15th
of November, 1975, the outages were in 73. six
light outages seven radio beacon outages seven
foghorn outages in seventy four one zero and
three seventy five two light three radio and
five foghorn the lighthouse at whitefish point
is also fitted with a battery powered auxiliary
light with a range of nine and one half miles
which would come on automatically if both the
normal power and emergency generator power for
the main light should fail. The only U .S. navigational
aids in the eastern Lake Superior north or west
of Whitefish Bay, which were inoperative on the
afternoon or evening of the 10th of November,
were those at Whitefish Point. There were no
Canadian aids in eastern Lake Superior which
were inoperative. So this paper is hundreds of
pages. Literally. And this is the only segment
in which I found reference to Whitefish Point
or the lighthouses en masse. And I think it's
interesting because obviously for this podcast
where we talk a lot about lighthouses, these
ships were looking, these captains were looking
for lighthouses, especially this one in discussion
at Whitefish Point, which would mean safety.
It would mean that they were close to land. At
the time of the sinking, I think it's going to
come up again. I think they're about 16 miles,
17 miles from that position from Whitefish Point.
So they were near safety, but of course did not
make it. By the afternoon of November 10th, there
were sustained winds of 67 miles per hour recorded
and waves increasing as high as 25 feet by 6
p .m. The Anderson was also struck by 86 mph
gusts and rogue waves as high as 35 feet. At
approximately 7 .10 p .m., when the Anderson
notified the Fitzgerald of an upbound ship oncoming
and asked how the Fitzgerald was doing, Captain
McSorley reported, We are holding our own. She
was never heard from again. No distress signal
was received, and 10 minutes later, the Anderson
lost the ability to either reach the Fitzgerald
by radio or detector on the radar screens. The
captain of the Anderson, his name was Captain
Cooper, first called the Coast Guard at 7 .39
p .m. on Channel 16, the radio distress frequency.
The Coast Guard reported that they were having
difficulty with their communication systems,
including antennas blown down by the storm. Cooper
then contacted another nearby ship, and they
said they could not pick up the Fitzgerald on
their radar either. Despite repeated attempts
to raise the Coast Guard, Cooper was not successful
until 7 .54 p .m., when the officer on duty asked
him to keep watch for a 16 -foot boat lost in
his area, a different incident. About 8 .25 p
.m., Cooper again called the Coast Guard to express
his concern about the Fitzgerald, and at 9 .03
p .m., he reported her missing officially. Petty
Officer Philip Branch later testified, I considered
it serious, but at the time, it was not urgent.
It sounds like there was quite a few things going
on in this storm. Lacking appropriate search
and rescue vessels to respond to the Fitzgerald
disaster, At approximately 9 p .m., the Coast
Guard asked the Anderson to turn around and to
look for survivors. 10 .30 p .m., the Coast Guard
asked all commercial vessels anchored near Whitefish
Bay to assist in the search. The initial search
for survivors was carried out by the Anderson,
a second freighter, the Clay Ford. The efforts
of a third freighter, the Toronto -registered
SS Hilda Marjane, were foiled by the weather.
The Coast Guard sent a buoy tender, Wood Rush,
It's a cool name. From Duluth, Minnesota, but
it took two and a half hours to launch and a
day to travel to the search area. The Traverse
City, Michigan Coast Guard Station launched a
HU -16 fixed -wing search aircraft that arrived
on the scene at 10 .53 p .m., while a HH -52
Coast Guard helicopter with a 3 .8 million candle
power searchlight arrived at 1 a .m. on November
11th. Coast Guard aircraft joined on day three
from Canada on the search, and Ontario Provincial
Police established and maintained a beach patrol
along all the eastern shore of Lake Superior.
Although the search recovered debris, including
lifeboats and rafts, none of the crew were found.
On her final voyage, the Fitzgerald's crew of
29, consistent of the captain, the first, second,
and third mates, five engineers, three oilers,
a cook, a wiper, two maintenance men, three watchmen,
three deckhands, three wheelsmen, two porters,
a cadet, and one steward. Most of the crew were
from Ohio and Wisconsin. Their ages ranged from
20, the youngest being Watchman Carl A. Peckhall,
and 63 was the oldest, of course, that was Captain
McSorley. The Edmund Fitzgerald is among the
largest and best known vessels lost on the Great
Lakes. She is not alone on Lake Superior seabed
in that area. In the years between 1816, when
Invincible, the ship, was lost, and 1975, when
the Fitzgerald sank, the Whitefish Point area
had claimed at least 240 ships. It's really,
really crazy. Sorry, those conditions are just
nuts. 35 -foot waves. What did we say about the
wind? I want to say 80 miles an hour, 86 miles.
Yeah, 86 -mile -an -hour gusts. Rogue waves as
high as 35 feet. And I'm looking at an image.
I don't know what I'm going to show on YouTube
for this episode, but an image you could find
easily on Wikipedia, for example, is one of the
Edmund Fitzgerald's lifeboats, which is now on
display at the Valley Camp Museum ship. A couple
of items were recovered. So the wreck and the
discovery and the surveys. There's a Coast Guard
drawing that's on record of the ship that was
found, and it was found in two parts, which will
build into the mystery of how it sank. So the
wreck discovery. The Navy sent an aircraft, and
it used a set of equipment with magnetic anomaly
detection. And on November 14th of 1975, it was
able to find the ship, the Fitzgerald, close
to the international boundary, U .S. and Canada,
at a depth of 530 feet. For reference, if anyone
knows the area, it's about 15 miles west of Dead
Man's Cove, Ontario, about 8 miles northwest
of Pancake Bay Provincial Park, and 17 miles
from the entrance to Whitefish Bay to the southeast.
What fun names. There was a further survey, November
14th through 16th, quickly by the U .S. Coast
Guard using a side -scan sonar. And that survey
confirmed what was detected by the aircraft,
two large objects lying close together on the
lake floor. So there's a whole entry here on
underwater surveys. And what I'll summarize,
if you want to read, of course, plenty of reading
to be had, but lots of footage. Many surveys
were taken using different pieces of technology
and underwater cameras. And actually, there was
a record set for scuba diving. I think it was
a pair of gentlemen scuba dove down to see the
Fitzgerald and did some 3D videotaping. So there
are many hundreds of hours of videotape of the
Fitzgerald that were collected for research and
to investigate the situation. Eventually, diving
to the Fitzgerald, it became kind of a tenuous
thing because what is the purpose of the dive?
Are you trying to solve the mystery of a now
50 -year -old shipwreck or a shipwreck or a rip
check? Or are you diving for fun, for adventure,
oceanic adventure? and it's disrespectful to
those crew. So there was a restriction put on
diving to the shipwreck as a defined watery grave
for those gentlemen. So I think there's the potential
that more investigation might be done, but since
so long has passed since the shipwreck, I think
it's more of a moment in culture and a respect
now for those who were killed there. Regarding
the sinking of the ship, you know, in the song,
Sinking of the Edmund, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,
it talks about water came over the bow and the
hatchway gave in and, you know, boys, it's been
so good to know you. It's not exactly been determined
from radio records and testimonies of the night.
Captain McSorley talked about a couple things
that are interesting. There was a guardrail that
was broken. on the surface of the ship, on the
deck. They had already been taking on water for
a while, and they had developed a list, as we
talked about, so a lean in the ship as it was
traveling. And there's a ton of investigations.
So let's talk through some notes here briefly,
and then I'll give kind of my summary of what
I've read. So there was waves and weather hypothesis.
We talked about some rogue waves. We talked about
being in the eye of the storm that evening. Winds
were changing. Things were not typical. The waves
and the wind were coming from an unusual perspective
from not the north to south, but rather multiple
directions. The rogue wave hypothesis of the
sinking of the ship is interesting because that
ship we keep referencing that was close to the
Fitzgerald, the Anderson, reported three waves.
Sometimes three rogue waves in a pattern are
called three sisters. And let's see. The first
wave introduces an abnormally large amount of
water onto the deck. The water is unable to fully
drain away before the second wave strikes, adding
to the surplus. The third incoming wave again
adds to the two accumulated backwashes, quickly
overloading the deck with too much water. The
Anderson reported that they were hit by two waves,
30 to 35 foot high, around 6 .30 p .m., which
is before we think the Fitzgerald sank. But it's
possible because they weren't in the same position
that the Fitzgerald managed those waves more
poorly. Also, a third wave or a particular dive
where the bow would be taking on more water,
it just... It just couldn't shed. It could lead
to a couple things. And those are the other hypotheses
that are oncoming. So one is that it just simply
took on too much water over time. So this next
one is the cargo hold flooding hypothesis. So
as we mentioned, there are many, many hatches
to the cargo hold. And there's some confusion
as to whether or not they are truly watertight
or mostly watertight or... they were clamped
or not clamped, closed. So, you know, these are
steel hatch covers, and under a normal condition,
they're going to fall closed. So they're opened
manually when the ship is being loaded or unloaded.
And it's regular. So here's a quote. Video footage
of the wreck showed that most of her hatch clamps
were in perfect condition. The Coast Guard Marine
Board concluded that... the few damaged clamps
were probably the ones that were fastened. So
one of the theories is that ineffective hatch
closure caused the Fitzgerald to flood. And so
as it was taking on water and rough seas, a lot
of the hatches were not clamped closed, which
clamping is a manual process to where the crew
would go to each of the hatches, and there were
many of them, and clamp them closed with some
ratchet -type devices, some hardware. With iron
ore, if the ship were to roll over, which would
be catastrophic, the weight of the cargo may
rip those closures open, I guess is the supposed
situation. And so if they were ripped open, the
clamps would be destroyed. The fact that in the
shipwreck it's seen the clamps in mass or in
good condition means, well, those clamps must
have never been engaged. So if they're never
been engaged and water was flooding over onto
the deck, perhaps it was finding its way into
the cargo hold. And, you know, 16 ,000 long tons,
I think, was the load of cargo. As you begin
to add water to that load, it's going to become
too much weight for the ship, both structurally
and from a basic buoyancy perspective. The ship's
going to sit lower in the water with more weight,
and then, of course, that's a compounding issue.
hypothesis as the shoaling hypothesis. So perhaps
they hit a shoal and the whole of the Edmund
Fitzgerald was breached or the structure otherwise
compromised to where the ship broke apart and
then sunk in the two parts that are now at the
bottom of the lake. Although it was investigated,
no shoal was ever found within the area that
No shoal was ever found that was obviously damaged,
is what I should say, within the area that the
ship sank. There is a shoal there, which will
come up again. The third is that there was a
structural failure. And this one's interesting
to me. I'm a mechanical engineer by study, and
there's lots of discussion about the structure
of the Fitzgerald, about maintenance, about welds,
and how some areas of the keel. were tack welded,
quote, during inspections, and some welds had
broken. There was also some supposition and some
anecdotal evidence about captains. Several of
the Fitzgerald had noted that the ship flexed
when it hit large waves, rogue waves, or was
on rough seas. Sometimes... I think the diving
board was used as a term to reference the flexibility
of the ship, which throughout history, there's
been an interesting relationship to strength
and flexibility of ships. For example, the Vikings
way back in the day, I learned this on a trip
to Sweden, the Viking longboats were particularly
interesting because they were wide and so they
didn't require a great depth of water for travel.
They could travel on the ocean as well as up
riverways. They were able to be rowed or sailed,
which allowed for that diversity. But what I
wanted to say was they were made of wood and
they built them in a way that they would flex
also in stronger seas. Of course, many, many,
many of them sank. But the longboat was interesting
because the flexibility allowed the ship to endure
the undulations of storm. And so that concept
is still around. And the stronger you have something,
or rather, the more rigid it is, the harder a
metal is, the more brittle it is. And the more
annealed a metal is, more or less. Of course,
I'm speaking a little bit outside of my knowledge
here. But what I remember is that the more...
durable a metal is the longer it will last in
cyclical stress so you can have metal strain
and stress and remain together without breaking
to where hardened metal may last longer and provide
a higher overall strain or rather a higher overall
strength before failure but the failure is more
of a crack rather than a tear that makes sense
so um Structural. Structural strength. There's
lots to read. If you're really interested in
that, I would recommend reading some articles.
The third hypothesis listed here is topside damage.
So again, it was mentioned by Captain McSorley.
The Fitzgerald deck had something broken. The
rail was broken on the side of the deck. So there's
a couple things that might mean. One is that
the ship was flexing and under flexion The bow
was being pulled down by force. The rail, which
was on the top of the deck, may have taken on
some of that load and, of course, is not designed
for that, so it may have snapped like a wire.
This topside damage hypothesis is supposing that
maybe something really heavy was floating, like
a log example, and that log may have come onto
the deck of the ship and caused some damage in
which water might be able to enter the ship quickly.
through hatches or otherwise. The thing I just
connected that I haven't thought about, it's
really just a question, is that boat that went
missing. There was another ship that the Coast
Guard said to be on the lookout for. Let's see
if I can find that real quick in the notes. A
16 -foot boat was lost in the area, was a quote
from the Coast Guard. So around 8 p .m. So I
doubt those are related, but potentially from
the little that I have read and learned here,
it's possible there was a run -in, especially
with no radar on the Fitzgerald and presumably
no radar on a boat as small as 16 feet. I don't
know that story there, but I don't know why they
were out in that storm, such a small ship. Such
a small boat. So let's find our way back to our
notes. Some possible contributing factors to
the wreck is that it could be any of those failure
modes that we talked about just recently. Structural
failure, topside damage, shoaling hypothesis,
cargo hold flooding. It could be any of those
things, or it could be a combination of those
things, even if the cargo hold were flooding.
They mentioned bilge pumps were activated, so
that means that there is some water that had
been taken on. If a significant amount of water
added up to a certain part of the ship, you know,
contributing to structural failure, that ship
could have broken up on the surface and sank
in two pieces. If it hit just a crazy wave or
potentially a couple of rogue waves and took
a dive, potentially it could have began to sink
and then broken up on the way down. Of course,
it did end up in two pieces. So some contributing
factors. The weather forecasting. We talked about
the National Weather Service changing their forecast
a couple times. That was unfortunate. They did
not predict that storm to be at that intensity.
And honestly, from what I've read, it was really
unlikely that this situation would be so bad.
And it was a culmination of bad luck, wrong time,
wrong place. And, you know, if the ship had just
put a couple more miles ahead of her, then she
would not have been in that place. There was
some inaccuracy to navigational charts. So one
of the things we mentioned, there's an area called
Six Fathom Shoal, which is a hazard to ships.
And eventually a survey was taken after the Fitzgerald
had sunk. and the survey revealed that the shoal
ran about one mile further east than shown on
the Canadian charts. So that's a big problem.
Now, of course, I mentioned the shoals were,
nearby shoals for the crash area were surveyed,
and it wasn't found to be any immediate damage.
Also on the shipwreck at the Fitzgerald, there
was no immediate damage that was visible. But,
of course, the ship is not something you can,
It was sitting in mud. So it's an imperfect assumption.
Contributing factor, the lack of watertight bulkheads.
So bulkheads are, if you know, separations in
a ship that help in the case of sinking, especially
to where if one area were to flood, the others
would not flood. And it would have enough buoyancy
in the ship to survive certain situations. Of
course, a shipwreck that... everyone knows about
is the Titanic. And the water, the design of
the Titanic had a fault, I believe, with the
bulkheads being insufficient. So when the Titanic
hit the iceberg, there were several areas in
which the water was able to travel. And of course,
wrong time, wrong place, and bad luck took on
too much water. And we know the story of the
Titanic. But the Fitzgerald apparently had I
mean, it was a cargo ship, so it had two non
-watertight traverse screen bulkheads as part
of the cargo area. Potentially that watertight
bulkheads might have helped in that case. There's
a lack of instrumentation. So a fathometer, which
is a fun name, was not required under the Coast
Guard regulations. The Fitzgerald lacked one,
so that's a depth finder. The Fitzgerald at the
time actually used a rope, so the old -fashioned
style was a piece of line knotted with measured
intervals and a lead weight on the end, and that's
what they would use. Of course, in a storm, it's
unlikely and less likely that they would be using
that system. So the Marine Board noted that because
the Fitzgerald lacked a draft reading system,
the crew had no way to determine whether the
vessel had lost freeboard. which is the level
of a ship's deck above the water. One thing I
just missed here, the Fitzgerald had no system
to monitor the presence or the amount of water
in her cargo hold, which we talked about. So
the intensity of that storm was likely to have
some water that's going to reach that cargo hold.
We talked about the bilge pumps were on, so there
were areas of the ship that were being emptied
of water, but there was no bilge pumps within
the cargo hold particularly, and no way to monitor
if there's additional water, which is, of course,
heavy. It's not as heavy as iron ore by volume,
but again, additional load after the ship was
fully loaded would not be a good idea. This is
interesting to me. A contributing factor increased
load lines and reduced freeboard. To summarize,
the ship was allowed an additional number of
inches to sink into the water, which allowed
the ship to hold 4 ,000 more tons in its cargo.
So, of course, it's a regulated system, and the
ship increased its cargo load and so also increased
the depth at which it sat in the water. which
for any situation with high seas is less advantageous.
Captains that piloted the ship prior and afterwards
to the load line increase said that she was a,
quote, good riding ship, but afterwards the Fitzgerald
became a sluggish ship with slower response and
recovery times. McSorley said he did not like
the action of a ship he described as a wiggling
thing that scared him. Fitzgerald's bow hooked
to one side or the other in heavy seas without
recovering and made a groaning sound not heard
on the ships. Scary. Very scary. Maintenance
is contributed in here. The lake decils were
dry docked only once every five years. And then,
of course, we talked about the welds on the Fitzgerald.
There's a quote here. The hole was just being
held together with patching plates. So it's not
ideal. Really not ideal. The combings, gaskets,
and clamps were poorly maintained. It was a note
in the year before 1975. Dry dock complacency
is interesting. How do I say this? I don't want
to be disrespectful. This article is a little
bit aggressive. Of course, it kind of makes sense
because you don't want to do this. So McSorley,
the captain, was known as, quote, a heavy weather
captain, which, you know, in the sense of masculinity
and the sense of holding a man's position, you
know, he was a proud person and he was used to
pushing the limits. He was known to, quote, beat
hell. out of the Edmund Fitzgerald and very seldom
ever hauled up for weather. So that's tough.
I mean, you know, there was several captains
that were interviewed that discussed how McSorley
was like, you know, a hard -nosed man and he
pushed through and he knew rough seas. And of
course, I've never been in these positions, but
it's something in engineering and also in construction
that we've seen. recur is when something works
out when you do something you shouldn't do you
take a risk and it turns out okay you've confirmed
in your mind that you can do it and you can do
it again and next time it will also be okay even
if it's still sketchy so that's a bit of an oversimplification
but that that theme has recurred several times
and it's interesting to me how that would apply
to this position I think it's more of an old
-time position, and these days we have more assessed
risk and more strategic thinking. I would say
that the military, Coast Guard, and official
positions at the time, we're talking about the
Coast Guard and their regulations for the Great
Lakes area. I would say that they're more measured,
but again, I'm not really in that world. It's
just from what I've heard and impressions I have
from regimentation and strict procedure, the
way things really need to be. And of course,
no one wants any more ships to sink. So I just
thought that was interesting as a listed complacency.
There's a legal settlement I don't really have
an interest in getting into. There were several
lawsuits that followed the sinking of the Edmund
Fitzgerald. I would say in my personal take that,
you know, the families of the lost sailors, the
wives and children, you're never going to really
be made whole again with a lawsuit. I'm not trying
to blame them. I'm just saying overall the lawsuits
kind of don't find much satisfaction in my reading.
So if you are interested, you can look into that.
Subsequent changes to Great Lakes shipping practice.
So, of course, after the event, there were some
changes, which is good. I'll summarize. The Coast
Guard made a requirement that all vessels of
1 ,600 gross registered tons or over use depth
finders. Survival suits, strobe lights were added,
life jackets and such as a requirement. Emergency
positioning radio beacons. on all lake vessels
for immediate accurate location of an event of
a disaster. NOAA revised its method for predicting
wave heights. Navigational charts for the northeastern
Lake Superior were improved for accuracy and
for greater detail. And the Coast Guard rescinded
the 1973 load line regulation. that permitted
reduced freeboard loadings. So the ships were
sitting a bit higher in the water, those that
had been modified previously. Coast Guard began
the annual pre -November inspection program recommended
by the National Traffic and Safety Board. Is
that right? NTSB? Transportation Safety Board?
Coast Guard inspectors now board all U .S. ships
during the fall to inspect hatch and vent closures
and life -saving equipment. And, of course, there
are some memorials that are nice. One thing I
wanted to read, the day after the wreck, the
Mariner's Church in Detroit rang its bell 29
times, once for each life lost. The church continued
to hold an annual memorial, reading the names
of the crewmen and ringing the church bell until
2006, when the church broadened its memorial
ceremony to commemorate all lives lost in the
Great Lakes. After the death of singer Gordon
Lightfoot on May 1st of 2023, the church bell
was ceremoniously rung 29 times in memory of
the crew, plus an additional ring in memory of
Lightfoot, who committed their deaths to posterity.
There's a lot in there, folks. It's a really
interesting thing. It's very sad, of course.
There's a lot of detail, and people have done
quite a bit of research to bring notes together.
There are many articles written, many sources
to be cited. I just wanted to talk about it because
I thought it was so funny that we go from singing
sea shanties to... you know, The Wreck of the
Edmund Fitzgerald, which, to be honest with you,
when I heard that song, I did not believe that
was a real event. I thought it was an old -timey
song with a catchy tune, and it's always been
fun to listen to, but it is saved on my Spotify
playlist. In fact, it was recommended to me on
a Spotify playlist recently called Sea Shanty
Bangers. So there's that piece of information
for you. Emily asked that I do a spooky episode.
And there's one that we have in mind that would
be a lot of fun because this episode is releasing
just around Halloween. But this one in particular,
I thought maybe get somewhere with hauntings.
And apparently there is a little bit of connection.
So I won't draw a hard line, but between the
Fitzgerald sinking and the many other ships,
it's one thing, you know, the lake never gives
up her dead. It's one of the quotes. Apparently,
many people have reported sightings of the Fitzgerald
and other ships. They've heard things. They've
seen things. There's spooky seas out there on
the Great Lakes. And the Fitzgerald, I guess,
has come up on radars. And when ships pass through
the area where it sank, sometimes there's some
relation to hauntings. Because of the story we
just covered, I'm not going to dive further into
that, but there's your spooky moment for the
day. That's all I have today, guys. I've never
done the solo episode before. I appreciate you
listening. Of course, it's rambled on a bit long
here, but I hope you've made it through. The
wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was a history
buoy that got carried away. So, thank you for
joining me. Please check out our... our audio
on Spotify. Check out our YouTube. Almost every
episode, very nearly every episode I posted YouTube
for. Someday I'll work on the early episodes
and get all those cast on there too. But there's
quite a few collected. I keep promising Emily
and you all listeners some merchandise. Today
I wore a Lighthouse Slowdown hat and I carried
my Lighthouse Slowdown Yeti mug. So it's in the
works, fam. It's happening. If you would, please
reach out with a kind word. If you have one for
Emily to support her in this tough time, she
is very loved. We've got a great community and
you all are a part of it. So once again, thank
you very much. And I hope you have a great time
today and tomorrow. I hope you're having a nice
day and I am so tired and I will see you next
time on the Lighthouse Lowdown. Cheers.