SS Edmund Fitzgerald Final Voyage and Wreck

SS Edmund Fitzgerald underway.

 

The Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin, at 2:15 p.m. on the afternoon of November 9, 1975, under the command of Captain Ernest M. McSorley. She was en route to the steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit, Michigan,[with a cargo of 26,116 long tons of taconite ore pellets and soon reached her full speed of 16.3 miles per hour. Around 5:00 p.m., the Fitzgerald joined a second freighter under the command of Captain Jesse B. "Bernie" Cooper, the Arthur M. Anderson, destined for Gary, Indiana, out of Two Harbors, Minnesota. The weather forecast was not unusual for November and the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted that a storm would pass just south of Lake Superior by 7:00 a.m. on November 10.

The SS Wilfred Sykes loaded opposite the Fitzgerald at the Burlington Northern Dock #1 and departed at 4:15 p.m., about two hours after the Fitzgerald. In contrast to the NWS forecast, Captain Dudley J. Paquette of the Sykes predicted that a major storm would directly cross Lake Superior. From the outset, he chose a route that took advantage of the protection offered by the lake's north shore in order to avoid the worst effects of the storm. The crew of the Sykes followed the radio conversations between the Fitzgerald and the Anderson during the first part of their trip and overheard their captains deciding to take the regular Lake Carriers' Association downbound route. The NWS altered its forecast at 7:00 p.m., issuing gale warnings for the whole of Lake Superior. The Anderson and the Fitzgerald altered course northward seeking shelter along the Canadian coast where they encountered a massive winter storm at 1:00 a.m. on November 10. The Fitzgerald reported winds of 52 knots and waves 10 feet high. Captain Paquette of the Sykes reported that after 1:00 a.m., he overheard McSorley say that he had reduced the ship's speed because of the rough conditions. Paquette said he was stunned to later hear McSorley, who was not known for turning aside or slowing down, state, "we're going to try for some lee from Isle Royale. You're walking away from us anyway ... I can't stay with you."

At 2:00 a.m. on November 10, the NWS upgraded their warnings from gale to storm, forecasting winds of 35–50 knots. Until then, the Fitzgerald had followed the Anderson, which was travelling at a constant 14.6 miles per hour  but the faster Fitzgerald pulled ahead at about 3:00 a.m.[41] As the storm center passed over the ships, they experienced shifting winds, with wind speeds temporarily dropping as wind direction changed from northeast to south and then northwest. After 1:50 p.m., when the Anderson logged winds of 5 knots, wind speeds again picked up rapidly and it began to snow at 2:45 p.m., reducing visibility; the Anderson lost sight of the Fitzgerald, which was about 16 miles ahead at the time.[

Shortly after 3:30 p.m., Captain McSorley radioed the Anderson to report that the Fitzgerald was taking on water and had lost two vent covers and a fence railing. The vessel had also developed a list.[ Two of the Fitzgerald's six bilge pumps ran continuously to discharge shipped water. McSorley said that he would slow his ship down so that the Anderson could close the gap between them. In a broadcast shortly afterward, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) warned all shipping that the Soo Locks had been closed and they should seek safe anchorage. Shortly after 4:10 p.m., McSorley called the Anderson again to report a radar failure and asked the Anderson to keep track of them. The Fitzgerald, effectively blind, slowed to let the Anderson come within a 10-mile range so she could receive radar guidance from the other ship.

For a time the Anderson directed the Fitzgerald toward the relative safety of Whitefish Bay; then at 4:39 p.m., McSorley contacted the USCG station in Grand Marais, Michigan, to inquire if the Whitefish Point light and navigation beacon were operational. The USCG replied that their monitoring equipment indicated that both instruments were inactive. McSorley then hailed any ships in the Whitefish Point area to report the state of the navigational aids, receiving an answer from Captain Cedric Woodard of the Avafors between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. that the Whitefish point light was on but not the radio beacon. Woodward testified to the Marine Board that he overheard McSorley say, "Don't allow nobody on deck", as well as something about a vent that Woodward could not understand. Some time later, McSorley told Woodward that "I have a 'bad list', I have lost both radars, and am taking heavy seas over the deck in one of the worst seas I have ever been in".

By late in the afternoon of November 10, sustained winds of over 50 knots were recorded by ships and observation points across eastern Lake Superior. The Anderson logged sustained winds as high as 58 knots  at 4:52 p.m., while waves increased to as high as 25 feet  by 6:00 p.m. The Anderson was also struck by 70-to-75-knot gusts and rogue waves as high as 35 feet .

The last communication from the doomed ship came at approximately 7:10 p.m., when the Anderson notified the Fitzgerald of an upbound ship and asked how she was doing. McSorley reported, "We are holding our own." She sank minutes later. No distress signal was received, and ten minutes later the Anderson could neither raise the Fitzgerald by radio, nor detect her on radar.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald on the St. Mary's River in May 1975

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that made headlines after sinking in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29. When launched on June 8, 1958, she was the largest boat on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest boat to have sunk there. Nicknamed the "Mighty Fitz", "Fitz", or "Big Fitz", the ship suffered a series of mishaps during her launch: it took three attempts to break the champagne bottle used to christen her, and she collided with a pier when she entered the water.

For seventeen years the Fitzgerald carried taconite iron ore from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works in Detroit, Toledo, and other Great Lakes ports. As a "workhorse" she set seasonal haul records six times, often beating her own previous record. Her size, record-breaking performance, and "DJ captain" endeared the Fitzgerald to boat watchers. Captain Peter Pulcer was known for piping music day or night over the ship's intercom system while passing through the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers (between Lakes Huron and Erie), and entertaining spectators at the Soo Locks (between Lakes Superior and Huron) with a running commentary about the Fitzgerald.

Carrying a full cargo of taconite ore pellets with Captain Ernest M. McSorley in command, the Edmund Fitzgerald embarked on her final voyage from Superior, Wisconsin (near Duluth), on the afternoon of November 9, 1975. En route to a steel mill near Detroit, Michigan, she joined a second freighter, the SS Arthur M. Anderson. By the next day the two ships were caught in the midst of a massive winter storm on Lake Superior, with near hurricane-force winds and waves up to 35 feet (11 m) high. Shortly after 7:10 p.m. the Fitzgerald suddenly sank in Canadian waters 530 feet (160 m) deep, approximately 17 miles (15 nautical miles; 27 kilometers) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay near the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Although the Fitzgerald had reported being in difficulty earlier, no distress signals were sent before she sank. Her crew of 29 all perished, and no bodies were recovered.

Many theories, books, studies and expeditions have examined the cause of the sinking. The Fitzgerald may have fallen victim to the high waves of the storm, suffered structural failure, been swamped with water entering through her cargo hatches or deck, experienced topside damage, or shoaled in a shallow part of Lake Superior. The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the best-known disasters in the history of Great Lakes shipping. Gordon Lightfoot made it the subject of his 1976 hit song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".

Investigations into the sinking led to changes in Great Lakes shipping regulations and practices that included mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems, increased freeboard, and more frequent inspection of vessels.

Career

Name: SS Edmund Fitzgerald

Owner: Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company

Operator:    Columbia Transportation Division, Oglebay Norton Company of Cleveland, Ohio

Port of registry: United States

Ordered: February 1, 1957

Builder: Great Lakes Engineering Works of River Rouge, Michigan

Yard number: 301

Laid down: August 7, 1957

Launched: June 7, 1958

Christened: June 7, 1958

Maiden voyage: September 24, 1958

Identification: Registry number US 277437

Nickname: "Fitz", "Mighty Fitz", "Big Fitz", "Pride of the American Flag", "Toledo Express", "Titanic of the Great Lakes"

Fate: Lost in a storm on November 10, 1975, with all 29 crewmembers

Scorned Cruise Ship Captain Not Alone in History

The captain of the wrecked Costa Concordia allegedly abandoned ship -- like many captains before him.

What will likely never be forgotten about the Italian cruise liner disaster is the quickness with which the captain of the Costa Concordia abandoned the sinking ship.

Considered one of the most infamous crimes in maritime law, Schettino's act of cowardice has many precedents in history.

Schettino may be a scorned captain today, but one of the most ignominious captains in history is Hugues de Chaumareys, captain of the French frigate Medusa.

On July 2, 1816, the Senegal-bound ship slammed into a reef. De Chaumareys, whose incompetence doomed the voyage, fled for the Medusa's lifeboats along with some upper class passengers and crew, while 147 people set afloat on a makeshift raft.

Initially towed behind the convoy of lifeboats, the raft was ordered cut free by de Chaumareys, who abandoned the passengers to a gruesome fate of murder and cannibalism.

When the raft floated to shore 13 days later, only 15 of the 147 were alive. The story shocked Europe and was immortalized in Theodore Gericault's painting, "Raft of the Medusa," on display at the Louvre.

Another 19th century infamous episode, involving the steamship  S.S. Jeddah, became the inspiration for Joseph Conrad's "Lord Jim."

In 1880, just like the fictional seaman Jim, captain Joseph Clark and crew abandoned the Jeddah, convinced that the leaking ship would have sunk. Nearly 1,000 passengers -- Muslim pilgrims on the way to Mecca -- were left to their fate in the middle of the Bay of Bengal.

Captain Clark reported his ship as lost, to then hear that she had reached port with all passengers alive, towed by another vessel.

On the other side of these tales of shame are numerous stories of nautical chivalry. One, involving the sinking of the troopship the HMS Birkenhead off the coast of South Africa in 1852, inspired the tradition of "women and children first."

The story goes that the soldiers' commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Seton, ordered his men to help get the women and children on board the three lifeboats as the Birkenhead began sinking in shark-infested waters. Not a single woman or child lost their life, thanks to the soldiers who stoically stood on deck as the ship went down. Their sacrifice has gone down in maritime history as the Birkenhead Drill -- women and children first.


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Embarkation of the Pilgrims

by Robert Walter Weir. 

 William Bradford is depicted at center, kneeling in the background, symbolically behind Gov. John Carver (holding hat) whom Bradford would succeed.

Ancient Ships: The Mayflower

The Mayflower was the ship that transported English and Dutch Separatists and other adventurers referred to by the Separatists as "the Strangers" to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620.

The Mayflower has a famous place in American history as a symbol of early European colonization of the future United States.

The main record for the voyage of the Mayflower and the disposition of the Plymouth Colony comes from the letters and journal of William Bradford, who was a guiding force and later the governor of the colony.

"Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor," by William Halsall, 1882 at Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

The seamen on the Mayflower had four devices to help them during their journey. They charted their course with a compass. They measured their speed with the log and line system. The log and line system was a board attached to a line, which was tossed over the stern. The line was marked with a knot at regular intervals related to the length of a nautical mile. Time was measured with hour glasses; for example, "when the hour glass had emptied at the top vessel, a sailor would strike a bell, and another sailor would count how many knots of line had run out". The speed of the ship in nautical miles per hour (still called "knots") would then be known.

Ancient Ships: Japanese Red Seal Ship

Red seal ships were Japanese armed merchant sailing ships bound for Southeast Asian ports with a red-sealed patent issued by the early Tokugawa shogunate in the first half of the 17th century. Between 1600 and 1635, more than 350 Japanese ships went overseas under this permit system. 

 Besides Japanese traders, 12 European and 11 Chinese residents, including William Adams and Jan Joosten, are known to have received permits.

 

A 1634 Japanese Red seal ship, incorporating Western-style square and lateen sails, rudder and aft designs. The ships were typically armed with 6 to 8 cannons. Tokyo Naval Science Museum.

Ancient Navigators: William Adams

 
1707 map of Japan, with a cartouche representing the audience of William Adams with the Shogun. From Naaukeurige Versameling der Gedenk-Waardigste Zee en Land-Reysen (a series of accounts of famous voyages). Thought to be by Pieter van der Aa.

First foreign samurai: William Adams

William Adams is known as the first and only officially-recognized foreign samurai

William Adams (24 September 1564 – 16 May 1620), also known in Japanese as Anjin-sama (anjin, "pilot"; sama, a Japanese honorific) and Miura Anjin ("the pilot of Miura"), was an English navigator who traveled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country. He was the inspiration for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's bestselling novel Shōgun.

Soon after Adams' arrival in Japan, he became a key advisor to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and built for him Japan's first Western-style ships. Adams was later the key player in the establishment of trading factories by the Netherlands and England. He was also highly involved in Japan's Red Seal Asian trade, chartering and captaining several ships to Southeast Asia. He died in Japan at age 55, and has been recognized as one of the most influential foreigners in Japan during this period.

The shogun took a liking to Adams and made him a revered diplomatic and trade advisor and bestowed great privileges upon him. Ultimately, Adams became his personal advisor on all things related to Western powers and civilization and, after a few years, Adams replaced the Jesuit Padre João Rodrigues as the Shogun's official interpreter. Padre Valentim Carvalho wrote: "After he had learned the language, he had access to Ieyasu and entered the palace at any time"; he also described him as "a great engineer and mathematician".

Ancient Navigation: Sounding Weights

SOUNDING WEIGHTS
 
Today, a relatively inexpensive G.P.S. receiver can indicate the position of a ship within a few meters, and moving charts on a video screen facilitate navigation. Until relatively recently, however, the compass was not particularly accurate, and navigators were dependant on charts of widely varying accuracy. Since the depth of water beneath a hull is always a primary concern, the sounding-weight—known in the Mediterranean by at least the sixth century B.C.—remained a critical navigational aid on seas and rivers well into the twentieth century.

A sounding-weight is a roughly bell-shaped mass—usually made of lead—averaging about five kilogrammes in weight, with a sturdy attachment lug at its apex and a tallow cup in its spreading base. Ancient mariners used sounding-weights, the oldest known marine navigational instrument, not only to determine the depth of water, but also to bring up samples of the bottom, comparing the result with their knowledge of coastal geography and river behavior.

Age of Discovery: Vasco da Gama

"Vasco da Gama Leaving Portugal," by John Henry Amshewitz, early 1900's

Vasco da Gam, aPortuguese explorer, was one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India.

He is one of the most famous and celebrated explorers from the Discovery Ages, being the first European to reach India through sea. This discovery was very impactful and paved the way for the Portuguese to establish a long lasting colonial empire in Asia. The route meant that the Portuguese wouldn't need to cross the highly disputed Mediterranean nor the dangerous Arabia and that the whole voyage would be made by sea.

After decades of sailors trying to reach India with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and attacks, Gama landed in Calicut on the 20 May 1498. Reaching the legendary Indian spice routes unopposed helped the Portuguese Empire improve its economy that, until Gama, was mainly based on trades along the Northern and coastal West Africa. These spices were mostly pepper and cinnamon at first, but soon included other products, all new to Europe which lead to a commercial monopoly for several decades.

Age of Discovery: Henry The Navigator

Henry the navigator was a Portuguese prince and the organizer of the first expedition of Europeans to the new land.

An important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and the Age of Discoveries in total. He was responsible for the early development of European exploration and maritime trade with other continents.

Age of Discovery

Age of Discovery called discovery, made by European travelers in late XV - in the first half XVII. The impetus for these Europeans were searching for a new sea route to India around the Ottoman possessions. The first started looking for new ways to Eastern countries Portugal and Spain.

This is the world in the imagination of Europeans before the Age of Discovery. 
(World Map, compiled in 1436)