I actually went there to listen to that piece, which is excellent, only to find the actual tape recording of the radio traffic had been posted a few years ago. Cynically you have to wonder if nowadays the lawyers for the Dubai corporation who owns the shipping company would have been consulted.
There is an annual memorial service as I understand it.
:: There is an annual memorial service as I understand it ::
Yes, there is. Typically November 11 each year as the shipping season closes on The Lakes.
It is a service for all the Maritime sailors who gave their lives to “The Lakes” (not just “Gitchee-gummee”).
There is separate tolling of the bells for each lost freighter and crew members. SS Edmund Fitzgerald still has 29 bells.
It is quite moving at the “Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral” (just down Jefferson Ave. from the RenCen). As they announce the name of the freighter, the number who served and the number lost.
Having been there and heard the chaplain say:
“The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, November 10, 1975.
29 crew members...All were lost.”
And then the bell is rung -as G. Lightfoot said- “29 times for each man that was lost”. It can make a man cry.