The National Weather Service had issued a forecast of a storm in the Upper Midwest for November 9th and 10th, but predicted that it would pass south of Lake Superior and would have its most devastating impact on central Wisconsin, Lake Michigan, and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Based on that forecast, two ships -- the Edmund Fitzgerald and the Arthur M. Anderson -- left Wisconsin on November 9th and sailed eastward across Lake Superior.
Capt. Paquette, drawing on his years of experience sailing on the Great Lakes, ignored the National Weather Service forecast and predicted that the storm would sweep northward directly across Lake Superior. He departed from port and took a longer, slower route along the north shore of Lake Superior to protect his ship from the heavy seas that would form across open the stretches of water when the rotation pattern of the storm would bring the wind from the north and northwest.
Despite the longer/slower route, the Wilfred Sykes was the first ship on Lake Superior to reach its discharge port after the storm subsided and the search for the wreckage of the Edmund Fitzgerald began.
That's the kind of weather forecaster I want piloting my ship!
Yep!