What's obvious is that wind and waves played a big role in the sinking. In a similar vein, Paul Hainault, a retired Michigan Tech University professor, postulated a seiche caused the ship to scrape the bottom of Superior Shoal early that morning and the weakened hull eventually gave out. What was eventually found only included destroyed remains of the ships two lifeboats, life preservers and items from the ship's galleys. On this voyage,Fitzgeraldwas fully loaded with iron ore. The ships were nearing Whitefish Bay. 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. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. Fitzgerald nearly reached Caribou Island, but the slower Anderson was behind, just approaching Machicote, almost four miles from West End Light. Officers from the Anderson observed that the Fitzgerald sailed through this exact area. FAQs. Beyond these improvements on board the ships, the marine weather reports have become more sophisticated and accessible, with detailed charts now printed out electronically in the pilothouse. Caribou Island is an uninhabited island in the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 kilometres (25mi) south of Michipicoten Island. This would have left the crew no way to survive the Edmund Fitzgerald Wreck. 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. 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. Next, EF was slated for serious repair two days later, for two known structural weaknesses. While conditions were bad, with winds gusting to 50 knots and seas 12 to 16 feet, both captains had often piloted their vessels in similar conditions. What also can be stated with certainty is that sometime between 7:10 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., the Fitzgerald simply disappeared into Lake Superior about 15 miles from the shelter of Whitefish Bay just west of Sault Ste. Instead they consist of bedrock ridges and interfluves that lie between northerly trending bedrock valleys, which are known as tunnel valleys. The flooding of the cargo hold took place through ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck.. There was no answer. 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. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram. His written report states: At this time I became very concerned about the Fitzgerald couldnt see his lights when we should have. Between 1959 and 1975, the life of theEdmund Fitzgeraldwas routineand mostly uneventful, clocking nearly 750 succesful round trips, though was occasionally greeted by positive and negative events. Affirmative. This is 35 feet above the waterline.. Ed Peewee Charles Ringwald and the late Terry Clements, a Detroit native who had played guitar for Lightfoot since the early 1970s, came up with the haunting guitar and steel riffs. Its likely that they didnt latch a lot of the hatch cover clamps because the crew was on Sunday overtime pay and they were so late getting covered up - and the weather was very nice at that time., Such speculation fits easily into the puzzle of the Fitzgerald tragedy. (TheEdmund Fitzgeraldseen in her final years riding far lower in the water than she should have ever been allowed to. Aware of a building November storm entering the Great Lakes from the great plains, Captain McSorley and Captain Cooper agreed to take the northerly course across Lake Superior, where they would be protected by highlands on the Canadian shore. That would seem to indicate that their instruments convinced them that water was leaking into the tank area. Because all 29 men aboard the Fitzgerald went down with the ship -- which was there one minute and gone the next -- the best accounts that investigators could rely on were those of sailors in the vicinity of the ship during the storm, or who had contact with the Fitzgerald somehow in the weeks prior to her final voyage. The Fateful Journey of The Edmund Fitzgerald - A Great Lakes Disaster Captain Cooper reported winds from the NW x W (305 ) at a steady 58 knots with gusts to 70 knots, and seas of 18 to 25 feet. "6 wolves on Lake Superior island saved from starvation by Canadian-U.S. team | Globalnews.ca", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Caribou_Island_(near_Michipicoten_Island)&oldid=1136093001, This page was last edited on 28 January 2023, at 18:26. Arthur M. Anderson - Shipwatcher News Great Lakes Ships Below is a breakdown of the main theories: Faulty hatch covers caused massive internal flooding. The cause of the sinking is still a matter of much historic debate, both Ley and Sproule note. In that sense, the Fitzgerald met her fate on the path she took to avoid it. 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. Let's not forget about the structural failure of the Carl D. Bradley on Lake Michigan in 1958. But we were talking to him about seven and he said that everything was going fine. Tom was also the hunting boating and orv safety instructor. Of note, the NTSB report included a dissenting opinion that held to this theory. Result: She then sat about nine feet lower in the water than her sisters -- from my observation of their arrivals while fishing for Perch just east of Indiana Harbor, at the southern tip of Lake Michigan. It is approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5mi) long and 2.4 kilometres (1.5mi) wide, and 1,600 acres (647ha) in area. The bow lies mostly buried in the mud upright pointing towards Whitefish Bay. Marie, Michigan, during ferocious northwest winds and seas that washed as high as eight to 12 feet over the ships main deck. Tweets by @lakesuperiormag !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Known for the best burgers in Fullerton, Islands also offers delicious tropical cocktails and fries that are fresh cut daily with the skins left on. 4:10 PM - Nov. 10th, 1975 - Eastern Lake Superior, southeast of Caribou Island. As originally built,Edmund Fitzgeraldwas a coal burning steamship with a Westinghouse steam turbine driving a single four bladed propeller at her rear. What caused Edmund Fitzgerald to sink? The following May, 1976, Woodrush was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. '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. Theories - THE EDMUND FITZGERALD It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. 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? As the afternoon wore on, radio communications with the Fitzgerald concerned navigational information but no extraordinarily alarming reports were offered by Captain McSorley. Again, though, I have to leave that decision up to you as to whether it would be hazarding your vessel or not. Perhaps the real cause of the sinking may never be known for certain. 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. It's a national disgrace. Although she had a good safety record, theFitzgerald'shull was, according to the anecdotes of mariners who set foot aboard her and sailed on her, a vessel with a loose keel. There's even a work of Fiction, SCP-1174, titled, and I quote, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". On April 15, 1977 the U.S. Coast Guard released its official report of Subject: S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, official number 277437, sinking in Lake Superior on 10 November 1975 with loss of life. While the Coast Guard said the cause of the sinking could not be conclusively determined, it maintained that the most probable cause of the sinking of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald was the loss of buoyancy and stability resulting from massive flooding of the cargo hold. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down In 2003, the herd was estimated to have 490,000 individuals, 6 and in 2016, the herd count decreased to 201,000. 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. Jesse B. Cooper told an audience in Wisconsin the Anderson was struck from astern that evening by a pair of huge waves, which rolled over his ship and continued on toward the Fitzgerald. [2], According to the available information, Caribou Island consists of a mixture of glacial sediments and Precambrian sandstone. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Improvements in personal lifesaving equipment have resulted in suits to protect sailors from hypothermia in Lake Superiors cold waters. After reviewing testimony that Fitzgerald had passed near shoals north of Caribou Island, the USCG Marine Board examined the relevant navigational charts. The unedited video of the expedition did not show a complete body how it did show a clear shot of a leg along with the shoe of the unfortunate crewman. 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. The same problems were reported aboard theHomer. Arthur M. Anderson | Duluth Ships and Places Wiki | Fandom Do the math. 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. Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) are now standard equipment on lakes vessels, allowing instantaneous identification of the area where a vessel founders. I have never been able to get that shot out of my head to this day 35 years later. 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. 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. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water, Ley wrote. Gordon Lightfoot liked this theory, posited by the National Transportation Safety Board a year after the Coast Guard issued its report. What is the most accepted theory for the sinking of the Edmund - Quora So why not rebuild the ship? 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. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. The search turned up no results for the first hour. They would later make a turn to the southeast to eventually reach the shelter of Whitefish Point. Near-hurricane force winds seemed to pick up strength throughout the day while visibility was greatly reduced. Also, a larger, more powerful tug, the Katmai Bay, is now stationed at Sault Ste. Perhaps the most widely accepted of the several theories about the loss of the Fitzgerald is that the ship crossed Caribou Islands Six-Fathom Shoal, which nestles off the north end of the island with water as shallow as 26 feet. Instead, the LCA theorized that the lost freighter had stumbled over the Six-Fathom Shoal at the north end of Caribou Island, sustaining damage that would prove to be fatal to the ship. If theFitzgeraldwere to be dived, then it would be a technical dive as it is over 200 feet. He is particularly intrigued by the command that Woodard overheard. The ships were nearing Whitefish Bay. The first one flooded our boat deck. None, of course, were found and only floating debris gave clues that the Fitzgerald and its crew were lost. Too soon to be coincidence. TheEdmund Fitzgeraldwas a "Laker" type iron ore bulk freighter launched on June 7, 1958 by the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rogue, Michigan for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company one year after its near sister shipArthur B. Homer. It was also revealed that a fence railing on theFitzgerald's deckhad been broken and a number of vent covers were missing. With the ship pounding and rolling badly, the crew of the Anderson discovered the Fitzgeralds two lifeboats and other debris but no sign of survivors. Another sonar survey was conducted November 22-25. The interior is low scrub and bog with small lakes, Little Italy, Hambone, and Deer Lake among many unnamed ones. In the steel towns to Gary's east, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburg, Bethlehem and others, urban decay also set in and still remains today (2021). The B-side on the single was The House You Live In.. Gale warnings had been issued at 7 p.m. on Nov. 9, upgraded to storm warnings early in the morning of Nov. 10. Within days, the location of the wreck on the bottom of the lake was pinpointed by U.S. Navy aircraft and the following spring the Coast Guard positively identified the wreckage using underwater photography. The wreck is in two main sections, the bow and the stern. There is a look out in Pancake Bay named after the Fitz. The U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board both issued official investigation reports that many dismiss in favor of a theory favored by the Lake Carriers Association. The story is about Inuit hunting the toughest Caribou until only . It happened too fast. May god rest the souls of the 29 men who perished that fateful night, The iron ore freighter is only about 9 nautical miles from Pancake Bay off highway #17 Ontario Canada, it sits in Canadain waters.
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