MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – It was Nov. 10, 1975 when an early winter storm full with hurricane-force winds and dangerously excessive seas sunk the SS Edmund Fitzgerald killing all 29 crew on board. Today marks the 48-year anniversary of the sinking.
Gordon Lightfoot’s lyrics maintain the Edmund Fitzgerald within the public conscience. “Superior, they stated, by no means offers up her useless when the gales of November come early.”
This was a strong verse in Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 Grammy-nominated hit, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Written mere months after the large ore provider vanished from radar screens, the track commemorates the controversial and considerably mysterious sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. To most Midwesterns, this occasion is greater than only a hit pop single.
The ultimate voyage
The ultimate voyage of the Fitz started on Nov. 9, 1975. The 40-year veteran Captain Ernest McSorley departed Superior, Wisconsin loaded with 26 thousand tons of taconite pellets and a mission to ship it to Detroit’s Zug Island. The Fitz weighs 13,632 tons when empty.
Not too far behind the Fitz was the Bernie Cooper-captained bulk provider SS Arthur M. Anderson. In response to the stories of a extreme winter storm entrance on the horizon, McSorley and Cooper agreed to take a northerly path throughout the large Canadian shores of Lake Superior over their radios.
It did not take lengthy for the storm to make Lake Superior extremely tough to navigate. Low visibility attributable to snow and excessive seas started to swallow the deck of the Fitz.
The Fitz in misery
“Anderson, that is the Fitzgerald. I’ve sustained some topside injury. I’ve a fence rail laid down, two vents misplaced or broken, and an inventory. I’m checking down. Will you keep by me til I get to Whitefish?” Radioed Ernest McSorley. Bernie Cooper agreed to tail McSorley and the Fitz to the shelter of Whitefish Point.
The Fitz had additionally communicated with the saltwater vessel, the Avafors at 5:30 p.m. “I’ve a foul listing, misplaced each radars. And am taking heavy seas over the deck. One of the worst seas I’ve ever been in,” radioed the Fitzgerald.
The final communications between the Anderson and the Fitz got here on Nov. 10, 1975 at about 7:00 p.m. At this level, the Anderson was trailing 10 miles behind the Fitz. “Fitzgerald, how are you making out together with your drawback?” requested Cooper.
“We are holding our personal.”
The Coast Guard searches for the Fitz
This was the ultimate radio transmission made by the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. There was no exact indication that the Fitzgerald was sinking. It is estimated that the Fitz went down so shortly that Captain McSorley wasn’t even in a position to make a mayday name. The SS Edmund Fitzgerald had vanished and would by no means make it to security.
At 8:30 p.m. Bernie Cooper reported to the Coast Guard. “I’m very involved with the welfare of the steamer Edmund Fitzgerald. He was proper in entrance of us experiencing just a little problem. He was taking up a small quantity of water and not one of the upbound ships have handed him. I can see no lights as earlier than, and I haven’t got him on radar. I simply hope he did not take a nostril dive!”
Captain Cooper and the Arthur M. Anderson went again into the damaging storm to seek for the Fitz and its crew. They had been unsuccessful. The Coast Guard initiated a seek for the lacking ship. On Nov. 14, 1975, a Navy airplane with a magnetic anomaly detector positioned the wreck web site. There it lay, 530 ft under the floor of Lake Superior, seemingly ripped in half. The bow sticking proudly upright.
The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The remainder of the story stays a Great Lakes legend to this present day. The Fitz is the biggest ship to sink on Lake Superior. The tragedy of the sinking was not the financial lack of the cargo and even the lack of the liner itself. The tragedy was that 29 members of the crew misplaced their lives.
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Michigan hosts an annual memorial to mark this maritime tragedy. This yr the forty eighth Annual Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Event shall be closed to the general public however may be seen right here on their web site.
