To this mariner, the biggest telltale sign was the captain’s report of a broken railing on the deck, which is not a normal type of damage you’d see from storm storm winds and heavy seas. Instead, it would indicate that the top of the ship was briefly in a state of structural tension — which would happen if there was a force acting on it from below.
That is 100% correct.
The Fitzgerald was at a 27 foot draft. The shoals are at 6 fathoms.
Gave it 9 feet of clearance. 20 foot, or higher, waves.
The Arthur Andersons captain, i think, said he had at least 8 to 10 foot of water washing over his deck at times.
The fitz had a loose keel. And it was a constant source of problems.
And to top it off. It was overloaded for that time of year.
But, this storm was sort of compared to the 1913 storm, which was really bad.
After our graduation from marine diesel engineering school at Sturgeon Bay Wi, we used to have our gatherings there and talked about how lucky none of us ended up on that boat after it went down.
And, we also used to talk about how that thing was built since some of the class went to work at bay ship building after we graduated.
All that’s discussed in the video. Armed with clear underwater photography, they established there was no breached keel, just compromised hatch clamps, due to wear and tear that told in a big storm, and a vent pipe that was blown off by the storm. The previous underwater photography suggested that, but was too grainy to rely on, and the families would not tolerate any suggestion of negligence by the crew. They were not negligent. The fastened all the hatch clamps. It was the clamps that failed, and the vent pipe.