Posted on 05/19/2006 9:12:53 PM PDT by ZGuy
Weather experts have "hindcasted" the storm that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior during the November 1975.
Hurricane-force gusts and waves coming from an unexpected angle likely contributed to the disaster immortalized by Gordon Lightfoot in the song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," researchers say.
All 29 crewmembers died.
"During the late afternoon and early evening of Nov. 10, conditions deteriorated rapidly with winds in excess of 69 mph, hurricane-force gusts [over 74 mph] and waves more than 25 feet high," said Thomas Hultquist, science and operations officer at the NOAA National Weather Service forecast office in Negaunee, Mich.
The freighter, thought like the Titanic to be invincible, was heading south. Waves were traveling west-to-east, the new analysis shows. This could have created a hazardous rolling motion. The ship sank about 15 miles from Whitefish Bay.
Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes.
"While high winds on Lake Superior are not rare, it is unusual for the waves to get that high on the lake," said Schwab. "It's unlikely that Captain Ernest McSorley, the skipper of the Edmund Fitzgerald, had ever seen anything like that in his career."
The findings are detailed in the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
ruin the song they did...
Yup..."They'd have made Whitefish Bay, if they'd put 15 more miles behind her."
What about the Andrea Doria? My neighbor was a survivor of that one?
One of the Coast Guard officers on duty that night had spent most of his career in the North Atlantic -- and he said he had never seen seas in the Atlantic like he saw on Lake Superior that night as they searched in vain for survivors.
A mariner in Milwaukee once told me that the Great Lakes were harder than any ocean he'd ever sailed. Not only can the waves get pretty damn high, the wave frequency is higher than the ocean. A ship can literally have the bolts pounded out of it because there's not enough space in between the waves to roll.
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" ping.
Gordon Lightfoot
Great song!
Great song.
I was a little surprised to find out a few years later that it was based on fact; I figured it was just a song for a couple of years.
Whatever happened to Gordon Lightfoot anyway?
Yep. If your ever in the area visit....
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/shipmus/shipmuseum.html
The reason is, from wave crest to wave crest, the wavelength is shorter, the boat can not ride up and down the waves. The weight of the boat usually fractures as the front and back rest on each wave 'peak'. We had a small boat on Lake Michigan, and we've been in conditions where 25 foot waves started within 30 minutes, even when monitoring the weather. We always knew where the 'safe' places were. Islands and coves and whatnot. Lake Superior is more dangerous, since it's an east-west mostly lake and the waves can whip up faster because winds generally come from the west. Lake Michigan is North-south.
The Andrea Doria was rammed in the side by a Swedish freighter in heavy fog.
That's not to mention the ship that was trailing about 10 miles astern, so there was some log notations about radio
and radar contact. And the loss of contact.
So, they're saying that the captain didn't pay attention to the wind and water conditions, apparently.
Rexamination of the 9-10 November 1975 "Edmund Fitzgerald" Storm Using Today's Technology .pdf
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