By this time, snow and rising spray had obscured the Fitzgerald from sight, visible 17 miles ahead on radar. Bernie Cooper of the Anderson reported his concern for the Fitzgerald to the Coast Guard station in Sault Ste. All were lost to the depths of Lake Superior. The modification never took place and the patch plates could be seen at the shipyard a couple of years after theFitzgerald'sdemise.TheEdmund Fitzgeralddeparted on what would be her last voyage the afternoon of November 9, 1975 leaving the iron ore docks of Superior, Wisconsin bound for aZug Island steel foundry near Detroit,Michigan. 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. Grew up learning about this. 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. 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. During the following three days, the Coast Guard cutter Woodrush, using a sidescan sonar, located two large pieces of wreckage in the same area. Then the Anderson just raised up and shook herself off of all that water barrooff just like a big dog. On this voyage,Fitzgeraldwas fully loaded with iron ore. Caribou Island is part of a large glacial moraine that accumulated south of Michipicoten Island. 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. McSorley and Cooper agreed to take the northerly course across Lake Superior to avoid a storm that was developing to the southwest, so they would be protected by highlands on the Canadian shore, taking them between Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula. What sank the Edmund Fitzgerald? : r/UnresolvedMysteries - Reddit USS Indianapolis (CA-35) When the skies of November turn gloomy.. Captain Cooper contacted the other ships in the area by radio asking if anyone had seen or heard from the Fitzgerald. In 2006, a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration study recreated the storm in a computer and discovered that the Fitzgerald and its floating companion, the Arthur M. Anderson, inadvertently steamed into the heart of the storm by taking the northern route across Lake Superior to avoid what they thought would be treacherous waves along the established, more direct southern route. 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.. In 2000, author Hugh Bishop pushed the "Three Sisters" theory about a trio of rogue waves that overwhelmed the Fitzgerald in quick succession. So the target would be 9 miles on ahead of you., Well, answered Captain McSorley, Am I going to clear?, Yes, he is going to pass to the west of you.. Sault Ste Marie, MI 49783 Her owners wanted her to maximize revenue, but "The Lake it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy." 400 W. Portage Avenue I've thought for a long long time the keel problem contributed to a major structural failure through years of metal fatigue. Caribou Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com 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. Cannon, W.F., Green, A.G., Hutchinson, D.R., Lee, M., Milkereit, B., Behrendt, J.C., Halls, H.C., Green, J.C., Dickas, A.B., Morey, G.B. The NTSB hewed to the Coast Guard line somewhat, agreeing that that non-weathertight hatch covers probably caused flooding during the trip, but the board ultimately concluded the probable sinking cause was "sudden massive flooding of the cargo hold due to the collapse of one or more hatch covers." The LCA stated that the patented steel hatch covers had been in continuous use for more than 30 years and had proven to be effective hatch closures in all weather conditions throughout that period. Several of the lakes are maintained by beavers and all are several feet above Lake Superior. Gordon Lightfoot liked this theory, posited by the National Transportation Safety Board a year after the Coast Guard issued its report. There is a very good chance that this is what helped lead to her demise. As of the 2010 Census, the town had a population of 0. Another sonar survey was conducted November 22-25. The situation was worsened when McSorely reported to Cooper that his radar was gone. From what your reports are I can appreciate the conditions. Others overlap in some ways. The industry they served collapsed in the mid-1970s. The mainland caribou are extremely important for their genetics. There was no answer. Captain Ernest M. McSorley had loaded her with 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets, made of processed iron ore, heated and rolled into marble-size balls. Great respect must be accorded to the wreck site, however, which still contains the remains of crew members and is considered a gravesite. [1], The island was privately held by a group of hunters and stocked with caribou in the late 1800s. They are the last of their kind exposed to the human development and predation on the mainland. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. The following May, 1976, Woodrush was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. 4:10 PM - Nov. 10th, 1975 - - Meteorologist Kyle Gillett | Facebook 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.. 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. A real eye opening view from the man who was the last person to ever speak to theEdmund Fitzgerald's crew. Weather conditions continued to deteriorate. 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. So why not rebuild the ship? Both theHomerandFitzgeraldwere the largest iron ore carriers built on the Great Lakes. The bell of the ship is now on display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum as a memorial to her lost crew. Right in the middle of this economic meltdown, and not just in the Great Lakes region, the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost. 2. Minor incidents included groundings and collisions between 1969 and 1974. [7], These reefs are not coral reefs. Of course, the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) blamed grounding on the not-well-marked Six Fathom Shoal northwest of Caribou Island. Captain Cooper observed the Fitzgerald passing very close to the dangerous Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island on the east side of the lake at around 1520 on November 10. The story is about Inuit hunting the toughest Caribou until only . Another explanation offered from the many undamaged hatch clamps is that the clamps were never latched in the first place. Perhaps the greatest change that came in the aftermath of the Fitz disaster is in navigational equipment. and Johnson, T.C., 1982. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. to which McSorely replied the infamous last words "We are holding our own." The Coast Guard then initiated its search for the missing ship. It is approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5mi) long and 2.4 kilometres (1.5mi) wide, and 1,600 acres (647ha) in area. 4:30 p.m. Fitzgerald passes 3 to 5 miles east of Caribou Island. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was also the first commercial early digital multi-track recording tracked on the prototype 3M 32-track digital recorder, a novel technology for the time. Less than 20 minutes later when the Anderson cleared a snow squall, its radars lost contact and the Big Fitz, as seamen called the ship, passed from the land of the living into legend. He reduced speed to allow the Anderson to close the 17-mile gap between them. Either of these explanations fails to address the fact that the ship had a list, which would not be likely if water were invading the large central cargo hold, but would be if water were leaking into ballast tanks or a tunnel along the side of the hold. U.S. Coast Guard rescue vessel Woodrush took 21 hours to arrive on scene from the Duluth port. Ancient hunting ground found hidden in Lake Huron | Tech Times 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. There is no conspiracy or disinformation campaign on that fact. The popular misconception is that non of the crewmembers bodies were never discovered. On May 20, 1976, the words Edmund Fitzgerald were clearly seen on the stern, upside down, 535 feet below the surface of the lake. 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. The first official report on the wreck sparked a flood of second-guessing. Great respect must be accorded to the wreck site, which still contains the remains of crew members and is considered a gravesite. Marie at 7:39 p.m., continued to try to raise radio contact with the big ship. It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. It was considered a private hunting preserve through the early 1900s. Various cars scatter the bottom of the river covered in grass and zebra muscles. Captain Jessie B. Capt. This years service was held at 11 a.m. this morning, with the bell tolling 29 times for each man on the Fitzgerald. 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 Edmund Fitzgerald was the longest boat on the Great Lakes. It was also revealed that a fence railing on theFitzgerald's deckhad been broken and a number of vent covers were missing. This is futher indicated by the stern which lies completely upside down beside the bow; all superstructure buried deep into the mud. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. The owners knew of the EF's structural problem, and had the steel already cut to effect yet another repair. what is the real truth to this? The two ships were in radio contact. MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa postulates rogue waves as possible based on the 2006 NOAA storm simulation. An explanation that has been espoused several times by mariners is that the Fitzgerald suffered a stress fracture and broke apart on the surface from the effects of heavy seas twisting and flexing the hull. The two ships were in radio contact. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. Caribou Island is an uninhabited island in the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Michipicoten Island. ZIP Code Lookup | USPS 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. He said that he was going along like an old shoe; no problems at all., Well, again, do you think you could come about and go back and have a look in the area?, Well, Ill go back and take a look, but God, Im afraid Im going to take a hell of a beating out there Ill turn around and give er a whirl, but God, I dont know.
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