New Clues to the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

LiveScience via Yahoo ^ | 5/19/06 | Robert Roy Britt

[kinoxi]

ruin the song they did...

[bannie]

The ship sank about 15 miles from Whitefish Bay.

Yup..."They'd have made Whitefish Bay, if they'd put 15 more miles behind her."

[Jaysun]

ruin the song they did...

indeed. is nothing sacred?

[Clemenza]

What about the Andrea Doria? My neighbor was a survivor of that one?

[Alberta's Child]

One of the Coast Guard officers on duty that night had spent most of his career in the North Atlantic -- and he said he had never seen seas in the Atlantic like he saw on Lake Superior that night as they searched in vain for survivors.

[July 4th]

A mariner in Milwaukee once told me that the Great Lakes were harder than any ocean he'd ever sailed. Not only can the waves get pretty damn high, the wave frequency is higher than the ocean. A ship can literally have the bolts pounded out of it because there's not enough space in between the waves to roll.

[Alberta's Child]

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" ping.

[Petronski]

In a musty old hall in Detroy-it they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed, 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

[Spruce]

As big freighters go, she was bigger than most. With a crew and a captain well-seasoned.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Gordon Lightfoot

[bannie]

YUP!!

Great song!

[LegendHasIt]

Great song.

I was a little surprised to find out a few years later that it was based on fact; I figured it was just a song for a couple of years.

Whatever happened to Gordon Lightfoot anyway?

[RunningWolf]

Lake Superior and Lake Huron (if not the rest) are essentially inland seas.

W.

[Westlander]

Yep. If your ever in the area visit....
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/shipmus/shipmuseum.html

[Indy Pendance]

The reason is, from wave crest to wave crest, the wavelength is shorter, the boat can not ride up and down the waves. The weight of the boat usually fractures as the front and back rest on each wave 'peak'. We had a small boat on Lake Michigan, and we've been in conditions where 25 foot waves started within 30 minutes, even when monitoring the weather. We always knew where the 'safe' places were. Islands and coves and whatnot. Lake Superior is more dangerous, since it's an east-west mostly lake and the waves can whip up faster because winds generally come from the west. Lake Michigan is North-south.

[Strategerist]

The Andrea Doria was rammed in the side by a Swedish freighter in heavy fog.

[vetvetdoug]

I was a barracks Sgt. at Keesler AFB in Nov 75'and had to sign an emergency leave for one of my men who lost a close relative on the Edmund Fitzgerald. Ironic how a disaster so far away affects so many.

[Calvin Locke]

What's "new" about this analysis? Thirty foot waves aren't unheard of, for that time of the year. And the waves moving West
to East? Gee, there's this phenonmenon called the "prevailing winds" that help create the waves that come out of the West...

That's not to mention the ship that was trailing about 10 miles astern, so there was some log notations about radio
and radar contact. And the loss of contact.

So, they're saying that the captain didn't pay attention to the wind and water conditions, apparently.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

http://ams.allenpress.com/pdfserv/10.1175%2FBAMS-87-5-607

Rexamination of the 9-10 November 1975 "Edmund Fitzgerald" Storm Using Today's Technology .pdf