The maxim “the prudent mariner pays heed to adverse weather forecasts” emphasizes that a wise and cautious sailor prioritizes safety by constantly monitoring and acting on predicted marine conditions. By doing so, they can avoid danger and protect their vessel, crew, and cargo.
This timeless advice is critical because:
Marine weather can change rapidly, transforming calm seas into rough, dangerous ones with little notice.
Adverse weather poses serious risks at sea, including high winds, powerful waves, and poor visibility from fog or heavy rain.
Ignoring forecasts endangers lives and increases the risk of disasterous circumstances.
This disaster was completly avoidable.
Book of Proverbs 16:18 states, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”
It was pride that killed off the Edmond Fitzgerald and took those 29 souls on-board!
Including the boatswain, who might have overlooked flaws in the clamps, or the captain or owners, who might have denied the request of the watchful boatswain for new clamps, or the evil owners, who excpected the ship to founder so they could collect insurance money, and planned for it by keeping rusty, cracked clamps in place, or overloading the hold, or both. Everybody who could inform us of these issues is either dead or unwilling to answer.
As mentioned in the documentary, modern cargo ships now have multiple layers of safety precautions. Weather is also much more predictable, and communications are light years ahead of what was available in 1974, before microchips, GPS, AI, satellite networks, and the Internet.