Posted on 11/10/2018 4:51:52 AM PST by keat
SS Edmund Fitzgerald Sinking in Lake Superior
Executive Summary
About 1915 e.s.t., on November 10, 1975, the Great Lakes bulk cargo vessel SS Edmund Fitzgerald, fully loaded with a cargo of taconite pellets, sank in eastern Lake Superior in position 46° 59.9' N, 85° 06.6' W, approximately 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay, Michigan. The ship was en route from Superior, Wisconsin, to Detroit, Michigan, and had been proceeding at reduced speed in a severe storm. All the vessel's 29 officers and crewmembers are missing and presumed dead. No distress call was heard by vessels or shore stations.
Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the sudden massive flooding of the cargo hold due to the collapse of one or more hatch covers. Before the hatch covers collapsed, flooding into the ballast tanks and tunnel through topside damage and flooding into the cargo hold through nonweathertight hatch covers caused a reduction of freeboard and a list. The hydrostatic and ydrodynamic forces imposed on the hatch covers by heavy boarding seas at this reduced freeboard and with the list caused the hatch covers to collapse.
Contributing to the accident was the lack of transverse watertight bulkheads in the cargo hold and the reduction of freeboard authorized by the 1969, 1971, and 1973 amendments to the Great Lakes Load Line Regulations.
I have not yet been to the White Fish museum but I want to go. I have been to the museum and lighthouse at Split Rock on the shores of Superior and highly recommend it.
The have a special observance every anniversary of this sinking as I recall. Split Rock is near where ships ground, sink and sometime go through rescues if they get driven west going into or out of Superior/Duluth. Many wrecks commemorated there and very beautiful. That lake shore drive is best not taken in the winter, however. Had a great vacation at Cascade Falls just north of there one year.
I believe the “witch of November” alludes to a series of storms in November 1913 or somewhere around that time when about 6 boats were lost in a brief time period centering around November. Most of the sailors supposedly knew of that history. So, Lightfoot put that line in the song...great songwriting.
He says they got too close to Six Fathom Shoal and McSorley knew they were sinking and needed the Anderson closer than they were. Fully loaded, taking on water in those conditions it lost buoyancy in huge waves and drove toward the bottom, instantly losing radio and radar contact.
Horrible.
Its only 21 outside here in the Yakima valley in eastern Washington...
Along with “’Twas the witch of November come stealin’” and “The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead.” Sheer poetry.
Note that the fog bell from the EF was recovered and in the museum. It is rung sometimes during commemorations.
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1. The combination of high seas and loose/damaged hatch covers allowed water to infiltrate into the cargo hold over the course of the trip from Superior, WI. This is not in dispute, as the captain of the ship had reported this on the radio some hours before the ship sank.
2. The captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald -- along with the Arthur M. Anderson -- began their trip eastward across the lake on the normal direct route to Sault Ste. Marie, but altered course northward as the storm kicked up so the impact of the northwest winds would be diminished by the Ontario coastline.
3. As a result of taking this route, the two ships ended up approaching Sault Ste. Marie from the northwest. As they made their way toward Whitefish Point, the stretch of open water behind them increased -- and they bore the full brunt of the northwest winds kicking up the waves from that direction.
4. At some point a "rogue wave" approached from the rear and pitched both ships wildly. The Anderson was OK, but the ongoing water infiltration into the hold of the Fitzgerald had catastrophic consequences for that ship. The wave approached from the rear and lifted the stern of the ship first. The water in the hold effectively acted as a lubricant on the ore pellets and enabled them to move more easily than a dry cargo. As the stern lifted, the cargo slid forward in a sudden surge and plunged the bow of the ship into the water.
5. At this point the front-heavy ship was functioning physically like a dart, and drove straight down to the bottom of the lake in a matter of seconds.
6. Since the ship was more than 700 feet long and it sank in about 500 feet of water, the stern of the ship was still above the water surface when the bow hit the bottom. The ship probably broke in half in that position -- which explains why it is in two pieces on the bottom of the lake with the stern half upside-down.
And a phenomenal performance of it by Tony Rice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUfalY7d83o
His phrasing, clarity of the words, and... of course guitar master.
Isn’t that unusual for Washington state?
The Columbia Plateau, east of the Cascade Mountains, has way different weather than Western WA. More like desert, the lows are lower and the highs are higher. It’s God’s country, for sure.
If there has to be a song in your head that is not a bad one. One of my wife’s friends called last night to say they were at the Dion show and now the stupid Titanic song is stuck in my head.
That was the version I had heard and seemed to explain the wreckage the best.
That there is one heck of a sentence.
I love Edmund Fitzgerald’s voice.
I had a Coast Guard helicopter pilot tell me that Lake Superior was as bad as anything he’d seen in the North Atlantic.
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