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SS Edmund Fitzgerald

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File:Fitzgeraldpic.jpg
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, May 1975.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W / 46.9983°N 85.1100°W / 46.9983; -85.1100, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot's hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.

The boat

Fitzgerald was a "Laker," a 729-foot-long (222 m) ore bulk carrier with a capacity of 26,600 tons (24,131 tonnes). Her large cargo hold loaded through twenty-one watertight hatches, each measuring 11'-7" by 54' of 5/16" steel (3.53 m by 16.5 m of 8 mm steel). When completed in 1958, at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Michigan, Fitzgerald was the largest boat on the Great Lakes and remained so until the early 1970s. Comparatively, boats today can be 1000 feet (305 m) long and 105 feet (32 m) abeam, with twice the capacity, but these boats are trapped on Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan and Lake Superior because they are too large to fit through the locks at the Welland Canal. The boat's engines were originally coal-fired, but were converted to oil during the 1971-72 winter layover.

The boat was owned by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and chartered to the Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Corporation. She was used to carry taconite from mines near Duluth, Minnesota to iron works in Detroit, Toledo and other ports. She was named for the President and Chairman of the Board of Northwestern Mutual and was christened by his wife. Edmund Fitzgerald's father had been a lake captain.

Some believe that the boat was cursed from the start. When Mrs. Fitzgerald went to christen the ship by breaking a champagne bottle over the bow, it took her three swings to break the bottle. Upon launching the vessel in the water, the boat was slightly damaged as it hit the dock, and finally, at the ceremony one of the onlookers suffered a heart attack.

The last voyage

Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin on the afternoon of November 9 1975 under Captain Ernest M. McSorley. She was en route to the steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit, Michigan, with a full cargo of taconite. A second freighter, Arthur M. Anderson, destined for Gary, Indiana out of Two Harbors, Minnesota, joined up with Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald, being the faster ship, took the lead while Anderson trailed not far behind.

Crossing Lake Superior at about 13 knots (15 mph, 24 km/h), the boats encountered a massive winter storm, reporting winds in excess of 50 knots (90 km/h) and waves approaching 16 feet (5 m). Because of the storm, the Soo Locks were closed. The freighters altered their courses northward, seeking shelter along the Canadian coast. Later, they would cross to Whitefish Bay and approach the Sault Ste. Marie locks.

On the afternoon of November 10, Fitzgerald reported a minor list developing and top-side damage including the loss of radar, but did not indicate a serious problem. She slowed to come within range of receiving Anderson's radar data and for a time Anderson guided the Fitzgerald toward the relative safety of Whitefish Bay. The last communication from the boat came at approximately 19:10 (7:10 PM), when Anderson notified Fitzgerald of being hit by two freak waves that were heading Fitzgerald's way and asked how she was doing. McSorley reported, "We are holding our own." A few minutes later, she suddenly sank – no distress signal was received. A short ten minutes later Anderson could neither raise Fitzgerald nor detect her on radar. At 20:32, Anderson informed the U.S. Coast Guard of their concern for the boat.

Search

Once Anderson noted the loss of Fitzgerald, a search was launched for survivors. The initial search consisted of Anderson, and a second freighter, SS William Clay Ford. The efforts of a third freighter, the Canadian vessel Hilda Marjanne, were foiled by the weather. The U.S. Coast Guard launched three aircraft, but could not mobilize any ships. A Coast Guard buoy tender, Woodrush, was able to launch within two and a half hours, but took a day to arrive. The search recovered debris including lifeboats and rafts, but no survivors.

Underwater survey

The wreck was first located by a U.S. Navy aircraft with on-board magnetic anomaly detector equipment, normally used to detect submarines. The wreck was further surveyed using side scan sonar on November 14 through 16 by the Coast Guard. The sonar revealed two large objects lying close together on the lake floor. A second survey took place from November 22 through 25 by a private contractor, Seaward, Inc.

In 1976, from May 20 through 28, an unmanned U.S. Navy submersible photographed the wreck. This submersible, CURV III, consisted of an underwater vehicle connected via umbilical control to a surface support ship. On-board imaging equipment included one 35 mm still and two black-and-white video cameras. It found Edmund Fitzgerald lying in two large pieces in 530 feet (160 m) of water, far deeper than scuba penetration allows. The bow section, approximately 276 feet (84 m) long, lay upright in the mud. The stern section lay 170 feet (52 m) away, inverted (face down), at a 50-degree angle from the bow. Metal and taconite heaps between the bow and stern comprised the remnants of the mid-section.

Cause and controversy

When Fitzgerald first vanished, it was widely believed the boat had snapped in half on the lake surface owing to storm action. Similar surface breakups in the past suggested bow and stern sections would be found miles apart on the lake floor. When underwater surveys revealed these sections were just a few yards from each other, it was concluded that Fitzgerald had instead broken only upon hitting the lake floor.

A Coast Guard investigation postulated that the accident was caused by ineffective hatch closures. These devices were unable to prevent waves from inundating the cargo hold. The flooding occurred gradually and probably imperceptibly throughout the final day, and finally resulted in a fatal loss of buoyancy and stability. As a result, the boat plummeted to the bottom without warning.

The Coast Guard report proved controversial. The most common alternate theory contends that inoperative radar forced the crew to rely on inaccurate maps. As a result, Fitzgerald ran aground on a shoal without the crew being aware of it. Consequently, she received bottom damage, which caused her to gradually take on water until she sank so suddenly in the deep water that none of her crew had time to react. The ship, pile-driving into the lake bottom, snapped in half, and its stern landed upside-down on the bottom. This theory is supported by final radio communications between Anderson and Fitzgerald; Anderson had been struck by two large waves that were heading toward Fitzgerald. If the hull had indeed been breached, it would be difficult to prove. Fitzgerald has settled in mud up to her load marks, making it impossible to inspect for damage.

Memory

The boat's bell was recovered from the wreck on July 4, 1995 and is now in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point near Paradise, Michigan. An anchor from Fitzgerald lost on an earlier trip was recovered from the Detroit River and is on display at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum in Detroit, Michigan.

The day after the wreck, Mariners' Church in Detroit rang its bell 29 times, once for each life lost. The church continues to hold an annual memorial, which includes reading the names of the crewmen and ringing the church bell.

Although the last vessel lost, and the largest, Fitzgerald is not alone on the bottom. The Great Lakes have a long history of nautical disaster; nearly 6,000 shipwrecks occurred between 1878 and 1898 alone, with about a quarter of those being listed as total losses. Some ships and crews simply vanished in storms. A number of diveable marine preserves have been established that contain multiple sunken ships.

In 2005, efforts were underway to establish in Washington, D.C. a memorial remembering all Great Lakes mariners lost at sea. A campaign to establish November 10 as "Great Lakes Mariners Day" fell short when in 1994, the House of Representatives ended the practice of annual Congressional recognition days.

In 1976, Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot released The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald', commemorating the events surrounding the sinking of the ship.

The concerto The Edmund Fitzgerald, written by American composer Geoffrey Peterson in 2002, was premiered by the Sault Symphony Orchestra in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada for the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the shipwreck in November, 2005. The concerto for piano and string orchestra chronicles the tragic final voyage of the Fitzgerald. Composed in four movements, Embarkment, The Gales, Six-Fathom Shoal (“We’re holding our own.”) and Entombment-Dirge, the concerto paints a vivid and haunting portrait of the legendary and mysterious shipwreck. The concerto incorporates several musical quotes. The first is Spanish Ladies, an English sea chantey, the other, the funeral march from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, “Eroica”. The work is housed in the Edwin A. Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music in Philadelphia, PA.

In 1986, writer Steven Dietz and songwriter/lyricist Eric Peltoniemi wrote the musical Ten November in memory of Edmund Fitzgerald's sinking. In 2005, the musical was re-edited into a new musical called The Gales of November, which opened on the 30th anniversary of the sinking at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, narrated by Kevin Kling, performed by the singers Prudence Johnson, Ruth MacKenzie, and Claudia Schmidt, and backed by Peter Ostroushko (Violin and Mandolin), Dan Chouinard (Accordion and Piano), Eric Peltoniemi (Acoustic Guitar), and Jeff Willkomm (Electric Bass Guitar).

Crew members

Edmund Fitzgerald's crew on its final voyage included (listed by name, age, position, hometown):

Statistics

Notes

  1. Graeme Zielinski, "Shipwreck overshadowed Fitzgerald's legacy," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. 10, 2005.
  2. The Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald (on the website of the National Weather Service Forecasting Office for Marquette, MI)
  3. National Transportation Safety Board, "Marine Accident Report SS EDMUND FITZGERALD Sinking in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975," May 4, 1978.

External links

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