Various cars scatter the bottom of the river covered in grass and zebra muscles. The owners knew of the EF's structural problem, and had the steel already cut to effect yet another repair. Marie, Ontario, only about 8090 miles SE. )As if the aforementioned problems weren't enough, Northwestern Mutual had theFtizgeraldpartially rebuilt in her later years to handle thousands of extra tons of iron ore, which substantially raised the waterline, increasing the maximum draft of the ship, maximum weight of the ship and height of the deck above water. Grounded on Six Fathom Shoal. After 10:00 PM, Cooper and his crew noticed large and small pieces of floating wreckage from theFitzgeraldwhich didn't make the situation any better.By the morning of November 11, the Coast Guard had managed to arrive at the scene to assist in the search and rescue operation. Reporting to the Anderson, the Fitzs Captain Ernest McSorley revealed the list and had activated two large ballast tank pumps to control it. It became apparent that theFitzgeraldhad indeed sunk to the bottom taking with her all 29 crewmembers, many of whom were young adults less than 25 years of age. Edmund Fitzgerald - "Touching Bottom At Six Fathom Shoal". Instead they consist of bedrock ridges and interfluves that lie between northerly trending bedrock valleys, which are known as tunnel valleys. A shallow reef 2.5 miles (4.0km) to the southwest of Caribou Island Lighthouse lies only 11 feet (3.4m) below the lake's surface. These tunnel valleys were excavated by subglacial meltwater at the base of the Laurentide Ice Sheet along pre-existing fractures and joints that exist within the bedrock floor of Lake Superior. Within a few years, Loran was rendered obsolete by the pinpoint accuracy of the Global Positioning System (GPS), which uses satellites to answer virtually any navigational question an officer might have. The same problems were reported aboard theHomer. Below is a breakdown of the main theories: Faulty hatch covers caused massive internal flooding. Some of the most famous lyrics in Canadian music history, anchored to what would soon become the most famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes, first appeared as the lede of the bylined story Great Lakes: The Cruelest Month by James R. (Jim) Gaines, national affairs writer, and Jon Lowell for a Nov. 24, 1975 Detroit-based story in Newsweek magazine. Why the Edmund Fitzgerald remains a cultural touchstone, Follow the final journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald, 17 miles to safety: Edmund Fitzgerald by the numbers. It shouldn't have. Another wave just like the first one or bigger hit us again. Fitzgerald nearly reached Caribou Island, but the slower Anderson was behind, just approaching Machicote, almost four miles from West End Light. I am from Sault Ste Marie Michigan and a former student of the founder of the great lakes shipwreck historical society Tom Farnquist. Marie, Michigan. There is a very good chance that this is what helped lead to her demise. No sailors in life vests were found. With no visibility in a hurricane-like storm and no radar to guide him, theFitzgeraldwas sailing blinded moving slower with every gallon of water entering her hull. At about 5:20 pm the crest of a wave smashed the Andersons starboard lifeboat, making it unusable. Other information comes from an interview witn Captain Bernie Cooper shortly before his death in 1993. In that sense, the Fitzgerald met her fate on the path she took to avoid it. Fullerton Islands Restaurant Fullerton. Paradise, MI 49768 Tom Farnquist is also notably the foremost expert on the wreck of the S.S. Edmunds Fitzgerald. Six-Fathom Shoal Updates During a taped conversation with his office, which was made a part of the record, the ANDERSON's master stated that the FITZGERALD "passed right over that 6-fathom spot." The. Weather conditions continued to deteriorate, Ley wrote. By late afternoon, the Anderson's captain was noting wind gusts up to 70 knots and waves up to 8 metres. Cooper tried desperately to raise McSorley on the radio to no avail. According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee never gives up her dead.. It is rumored that the light house keepers poached caribou and beaver. The protective visor over the wheelhouse windows has been completely flattened down and there is a lot of similar damage throughout the superstructure of the bow, indicating theEdmund Fitzgeraldmet a very violent and catastrophic end. Eight minutes at the Fitz was all that he earned for his four-hour dive because of the necessary decompression. Because the ship had no depth sounding technology, the crew had no way of knowing that incoming water was pushing the ship lower in the water until the flooding exceeded the height of the iron ore in the holds. This is futher indicated by the stern which lies completely upside down beside the bow; all superstructure buried deep into the mud. There have been about half a dozen dives to the site since the shipwreck in 1975. The insurance underwriters should have placed a hold on this trip. Previously suggested possibilities are that a hatch cover washed off or the heavy deck crane or the spare blade for the propeller broke loose and crashed about. Having been a consultant and active member of the original Jacques Cousteau expedition in 1980 along with the raising of the bell 1994 expedition. ZIP Code by Address. Capt. Use of and/or registration on any portion of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement (updated 4/4/2023), Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement, and Your Privacy Choices and Rights (updated 1/26/2023). [2], According to the available information, Caribou Island consists of a mixture of glacial sediments and Precambrian sandstone. One man lived to tell about what happened unlike the Fitz. It is approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) long and 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) wide, and 1,600 acres (647 ha . Cooper radioed theFitzgerald at 7:10 PMuknown to him that it would be the final communication with McSorley. If theFitzgeraldwere to be dived, then it would be a technical dive as it is over 200 feet. In the early afternoon of Nov. 10, the Fitzgerald had passed Michipicoten Island and was approaching Caribou Island, steaming toward Whitefish Bay at Superiors east end.. The studio was, yes, indeed, later torn down and replaced by a parking lot. Caribou Island was considered for an emergency landing airport (YCI) during World War II but it was never built because of the proximity of the twin cities of Sault Ste. It's still not completely agreed upon whether the Fitzgerald broke in half on the surface or underwater. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. By this point, McSorley knew his ship was in serious trouble and opted to head full steam towards the natural protection of Whitefish Bay to ride out the storm and protect his ship and crew from further damage.By 6:00 PM, the storm had worsened and its likely theFitzgeraldwas riding even lower in the water, due to much larger 35 foot high waves, heavier damage caused by the waves and an even larger amount of water in her hull the pumps seemed unable to cope with. In the early afternoon of November 10, the Fitzgerald had passed Michipicoten Island and was approaching Caribou Island. But I have to leave the decision up to you., Ill give it a try, but thats all I can do.. McSorley was forced to rely off reports from the United States Coast guard and the still functional radar of theAndersonto operate through the storm. Since these two large waves struck the trailing Anderson mere minutes before its final radar contact with the Fitzgerald, might they have joined a third rogue wave, overtaken the struggling Fitz 10 or 15 minutes later and overwhelmed the already listing and troubled ship? Morgan Clark, first mate of the Anderson, kept watching the Fitzgerald on the radar set to calculate her distance from some other vessels near Whitefish Point. Captain Jesse Cooper, (J.C.) of the S.S. Arthur M. Anderson watches the Fitzgerald round Caribou Island and comments that the Fitzgerald is much closer to Six Fathom Shoal than he would want to be. Because of a long fetch on Superior that night, the Fitzgerald and the Anderson were in an area of the lake where huge waves were indeed occurring. Captain McSorley told Woodard that the ship has a bad list, implying that it had gotten worse since his earlier report to Captain Cooper. Sawyer AFB in the UP of Michigan, crew member on a rescue helo. The wreck is in two main sections, the bow and the stern. It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. Crafts TheFitzgeraldoften held records for excellent safety and broke records for most tonnage hauled during a single shipping season. But the ship's owners were insurance men, not mariners, who reconfigured her for even more iron ore. In Lake Superior Port Cities Inc.s newly released book, The Night the Fitz Went Down, Captain Dudley Paquette vividly describes his voyage through the massive seas of the November 9-10, 1975, storm as master of the downbound Inland Steel Companys SS Wilfred Sykes. Stationed at K.I. The bad welds were confirmed by the Coast Guard, which approved repairs. In testimony before the marine board, Captain Cooper said that 10 miles southeast of Caribou he had waves cresting over the pilothouse - 35 feet above the waterline. First mate Clark spoke to the Fitzgerald one last time, about 7:10 pm: Fitzgerald, this is the Anderson. At the time of her launch in 1958, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest freighter on the Great Lakes. But almost certainly the suits would have saved the lives of some crewmen in the wrecks of the Carl D. Bradley and the Daniel J. Morrell, the two previous Great Lakes wrecks where most of the crews were lost.. Quantity. On November 14, a U.S. Navy plane equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector located a strong contact 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point. In fact, the Fitzgerald -- known as a workhorse ship that set numerous cargo hauling records -- was allowed by 1975 to sit a touch over 3 feet deeper in the water when laden with cargo than originally intended when the ship was launched in 1958. Already have an account? However, the Lake Carriers Association vigorously disagreed with the Coast Guards suggestion that the lack of attention to properly closing the hatch covers by the crew was responsible for the disaster. The bodies have not been recovered. MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa postulates rogue waves as possible based on the 2006 NOAA storm simulation. The Edmund Fitzgerald was bound for Zug Island, a heavily industrialized island in River Rouge, Michigan at the mouth of the River Rouge, where it spills into the Detroit River, near Detroit, and where it was set to unload a cargo of taconite iron ore pellets before heading onto Cleveland, her home port, to wait out the winter. In the more than 40 years since the ship went down, a cottage industry of shipwreck theorists have tried in vain to solve the sinking of the Fitzgerald, which rests in two pieces in 530 feet of water on the lake bottom 17 miles north of Whitefish Bay. The last dive in 1993 indicated that zebra and cuaga muscles were begginning to grow on her metal superstructure and that rusting had gotten worse. Sad story. 43 and 1/2 years later the feeling of that morning is still vivid in my mind. Okay, fine, Ill be talking to you later. Clark signed off. I then called the William Clay Ford to ask him if my phone was putting out a good signal and also if perhaps the Fitzgerald had rounded the point and was in shelter, after a negative report I called the Soo Coast Guard because I was sure something had happened to the Fitzgerald. The misinformation that has been spread by the media then and now is a great example of how clueless the general public is going to continue to be unless they stand up for a full disclosure of information and laws that regulate punish and fine the profiteers of misinformation. Caribou definition, any of several large, North American deer of the genus Rangifer, related to the reindeer of the Old World. Others overlap in some ways. Five years later in 1980, Jacques Cousteaus famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. The shoaling hypothesis suggests that the most probable cause of the Edmund Fitzgerald's wreckage was her shoaling or grounding in the Six Fathom Shoal northwest of Caribou Island when the crew was unable to use the Whitefish Point Light as a navigational aid. A body that was seen but not retrieved is not a recovered body. Broke in two and sank in minutes. By 1979, a new Loran broadcast station began operating at Baudette, Minnesota, giving sailors easy access to their location, speed, course being steered and other information. (A video of the once proud ship transiting the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee From everything we know and remembering that they were not required at the time, neither survival suits nor EPIRB would have helped the crew of the Fitzgerald because the ship sank so suddenly, Stonehouse points out. On this voyage,Fitzgeraldwas fully loaded with iron ore. Inspired in large part by reading Gaines and Lowells Newsweek story, Gordon Lightfoot recorded The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald the following month in December 1975 at Eastern Sound, a recording studio made out of two Victorian houses at 48 Yorkville Ave. in downtown Toronto. Contributing factors noted were a lack of internal watertight bulkheads and allowances for more cargo weight during the ship's 17 years afloat. A half hour later I heard the news. With mounting apprehension, Captain Cooper called the Coast Guard once again, about 8:00 pm, and firmly expressed his concern for the welfare of the Fitzgerald. Since then, there have been about a half dozen dives to the wreck using deep-diving equipment. Photo Credit: Greenmars (Wikimedia Commons: Link) This theory was supported by a 1976 Canadian hydrographic survey, which disclosed that an unknown shoal ran a mile further east of Six Fathom Shoal than shown on the Canadian charts. Upon reaching Whitefish Bay, theCoast Guard requested that any freighter waiting out the storm in Whitefish Bay go out to search for theFitzgeraldand her 29 man crew as the Coast Guard itself was unable to reach the scene immediately. Departing Superior about 2:30 pm, she was soon joined by the Arthur M. Anderson, which had departed Two Harbors, Minnesota under Captain Bernie Cooper. They passed several miles offshore from Split Rock Lighthouse, on Minnesotas North Shore. In 2003, the herd was estimated to have 490,000 individuals, 6 and in 2016, the herd count decreased to 201,000. He could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar set and could measure the distance between them. Later, in a videotaped conversation with GLSHS, Captain Cooper said that he always believed McSorley knew something serious had happened to Fitzgerald as the ship passed over Caribou Shoal. The shoal is a hump of Keweenawan basaltic lava flows with ophitic interiors and amygdaloidal tops in an otherwise deep part of the lake, and though fishermen had known of its existence for generations it was only officially charted in 1929 by the United States Lake Survey. Captain Cooper contacted the other ships in the area by radio asking if anyone had seen or heard from the Fitzgerald. Kids & Family, Search Events The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead Too soon to be coincidence. Water poured in through a sudden hatch failure. So, what happened? Gordon Lightfoot liked this theory, posited by the National Transportation Safety Board a year after the Coast Guard issued its report. However, Northwestern Mutual apparently decided to remedy the problem regardingFitzgerald'sloose keel. 109 W. Superior St. #200 Duluth, MN 55802 218-722-5002 edit@LakeSuperior.com. A dynamic population. Soon after, McSorely on the Fitzgerald reported taking topside damage and a list. The Coast Guard then initiated its search for the missing ship. Whether spoken from a desire to maintain calm in his pilothouse or from his own false sense of security, his assessment was obviously quite wrong. Only one other vessel, the William Clay Ford, was able to leave the safety of Whitefish Bay to join in the search at the time. Wold, R.J., Hutchinson, D.R. His assumption is obviously shared by others in the maritime industry, but changes instituted after the loss of the Fitzgerald are meant to help to prevent some perceived causes of the wreck. USS Indianapolis (CA-35) The slow flooding supposedly went unnoticed by the captain and crew until it caused an imperceptible but fatal buoyancy loss and eventually sent the Fitzgerald plunging to the bottom. [3][8][9] Samples dredged from a shoal northwest of Caribou Island and close to one of these valleys resemble Jacobsville Sandstone. In those seas, such a command goes without saying, so why did McSorley have to emphasize it? he asks. It was originally discovered by sonar shortly after the sinking in 1975 and first documented by several expeditions in 1976 including one by Jean Michel Cousteau, son of famous oceanographer Jaques Cousteau. A bit later, McSorley reported that his radars werent working and requested that the Anderson keep track of his route and give him navigational aid. All rights reserved. Perhaps the most widely accepted of the several theories about the loss of the Fitzgerald is that the ship crossed Caribou Island's Six-Fathom Shoal, with water as shallow as 26 feet.. George Stegner recalled last year how he was on duty that night: I was on duty this night. In the Duluth News-Tribune, another former crew member, Jim Woodard, claims the Fitzgerald was a "wet" ship. 906-635-1742 | 800-635-1742, GREAT LAKES SHIPWRECK MUSEUM But the Coast Guard called Captain Cooper back at 9:00 pm: Anderson, this is Group Soo. Caribou is included in the pages of the myths of Inuit. 'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); A Great Lakes Information Network partner, 2020 Lake Superior Publishing LLC. Not long after the search ended, years of arguments and disagreements over what could have caused theEdmund Fitzgeraldto sink have clouded up any hope of truly understanding what occurred the night of November 10, 1975 as the shipping companies, government agencies and sea fairers of the Great Lakes all have different theories and opinions that do not match. As of the 2010 Census, the town had a population of 0. Further searches with sonar turned up what appeared to be a giant vessel on the bottom in two pieces the rough size of theFitzgerald. The island was acquired completely by the Roys A. Ellis family in the 1960s and was transferred to the Mellon Conservancy Trust of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in the early 1980s to never be developed. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. Regis, R.S., Patterson, C.J., Wattrus, N., and Rausch, D., 2003. By early the next morning, theAndersonandFitzgeraldencountered a powerful November gale with winds up to 50miles an hour. See more. As the afternoon dragged on, the storm worsened. The iron ore freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank to the bottom of Lake Superior during a hurricane-like storm on the night of Nov. 10, 1975. Captain Cooper, too, had always maintained that Captain McSorley knew his ship was compromised on the shoal, but had faith that his ship would make it to Whitefish Bay. An entire generation now has no active memory of November 10, 1975, but the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald continues to fascinate, mystify and preoccupy young and old. From what I know, the Fitzgerald sank 45 years ago as of posting this comment, soon to be 46. The Western Arctic Herd is one of the largest caribou herds in Alaska and the world. Right in the middle of this economic meltdown, and not just in the Great Lakes region, the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost. Another explanation offered from the many undamaged hatch clamps is that the clamps were never latched in the first place. [1][3] In addition, exposures of gently dipping, friable Jacobsville Sandstone, have been reported from Caribou Island. As with all of the other theories, it may well be that we will never know the total story of this wreck - leaving each theory, for now, as good as any other. It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. Although not a heavy weather vessel like a cutter, it is capable of handling larger seas than the Naugatuck, the harbor tug previously stationed at the Soo. On this voyage, Fitzgerald was fully loaded with iron ore. Soon after, McSorely on the Fitzgerald reported taking topside damage and a list. The Fitzgerald suffered from structural problems, Ex-Fitzgerald crew member George Burgner claimed in a deposition that unrepaired cracks and weakened metal on the ship caused the loss, according to the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Fred Stonehouse. The first holds that some kind of large, heavy object crashed into the ship while it was passing by Caribou Island in Lake Superior during the early hours of the terrible storm of 10 November, 1975. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was released as a 7-inch 45 rpm A-side single in August 1976, taken from Lightfoots album Summertime Dream released that July. The lifeboats recovered were unused. Marie in 1967. Captains challenge high waves with he bow, not the stern. Another sonar survey was conducted November 22-25. Much of the information not commonly seen in other articles is courtesy of an interview with a tugboat captain on Lake Superior called "Tugboat Jim" who was close friends with a late crewmember of theArthur M. Andersoncrewmember Ronnie Roman, who was aboard theAndersonthe night Fitzgerald sank. When the skies of November turn gloomy.. This week, Minnesota tugboat captain Bob Hom, who sailed with McSorley before the man became captain of the Fitzgerald, claims McSorley once told him five years before the sinking he'd hate to be on the Fitzgerald in a big storm because 'They got it all worn out from years of overloading,'" Hom told the Duluth News-Tribune. But we were talking to him about seven and he said that everything was going fine. Every expedition to the freighter has reported that there is no evidence of scraping, gouging or damage to the rudder or propeller, which should show on the overturned bottom of the stern. The search turned up no results for the first hour. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. Perhaps the real cause of the sinking may never be known for certain. Adding to that puzzle is the fact that its captain never uttered a word of serious concern for his ship nor reported his problems to the Coast Guard. Captain Cooper maintained that he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. Also, the Fitzgeralds officers had started two pumps to evacuate water, but those pumps would only remove water from the ballast tanks, not the cargo hold. Furthermore, any chance of using the wreck itself as a means of understanding what happened is next to impossible as the Canadian government has banned all diving operations period to the wreck since the recovery of theFitzgerald'sbell in 1993. it is likely that the world may never know the true ending of theEdmund Fitzgerald. The Anderson turned out to be the primary vessel in the search, taking the lead. It was not long after thatFitzgeraldvanished from theAnderson'sradar. released a very fine and very different tempo cover of Lightfoots The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald last March 15. Officers from the Anderson observed that the Fitzgerald sailed through this exact area. Marie, Michigan, during ferocious northwest winds and seas that washed as high as eight to 12 feet over the ships main deck. GLSHS three expeditions to the wreck revealed that it is likely she submarined bow first into an enormous sea, as damage forward is indicative of a powerful, quick force to the superstructure. in 1980, Jacques Cousteau's famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. At 3:30 pm that afternoon, Captain McSorley radioed Captain Cooper and said: Anderson, this is the Fitzgerald. You can listen to it here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8LBkYjniTU. The suits are also equipped with flashing lights and radio position beacons. "He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water," Ley wrote. I wouldnt be surprised if a hatch cover came off, because I loaded right beside him in Superior on November 9 and the deck crew was still putting on hatch covers when they left the Superior Entry into Lake Superior, Captain Paquette says. 301 did sink that fateful night, all hands, but should it have? Only one man has undertaken a scuba dive, using special air mixtures in his tanks. The Lake Carriers Association disagreed, proposing that the Six Fathom Shoal was the Fitzgerald's undoing. The two ships were in radio contact. Part of that fascination, despite the longspan since the foundering of the big ore freighter, results from Gordon Lightfoots monster best-selling recording about the wreck and part likely springs from the inconclusive nature of any facts surrounding the sinking. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. ZIP Code by City and State. Marine and other experts who examined Coast Guard photos and videotape of the wreckage for the board of inquiry dismissed fracture as a cause of the wreck, based on the fact that no photo evidence shows brittle fracture separation, which is described as having straight or flat edges. Size & Medium. A 2012 sonar image shows theFitzgeraldto have deteriorated heavily since 1993. Cooper later said he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. 4:30 p.m. Fitzgerald passes 3 to 5 miles east of Caribou Island. Join us at Islands Restaurant in Fullerton on Malvern Avenue. The CURV III unit took 43,000 feet of video tape and 900 photographs of the wreck. Gale warnings had been issued at 7 p.m. on Nov. 9, upgraded to storm warnings early in the morning of Nov. 10. That finding was quickly challenged by the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) and by many seasoned sailors. The interior is low scrub and bog with small lakes, Little Italy, Hambone, and Deer Lake among many unnamed ones. The retrofit was planned for November 12, 1975 upon completion of the1975 season. But what caused the ship to take on water, enough to lose buoyancy and dive to the bottom so quickly, without a single cry for help, cannot be determined. Even before her demise, the Fitzgeraldwas a well known icon of the Great Lakes to those that lived along it.). Canadian flag on the bow, American flag at stern, the Edmund Fitzgerald was a frequent site on the Great Lakes during its almost two decades of service before it sank with the loss of all 29 crew members.
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