I read a report about a phenomena called the Three Sisters-rogue waves. I, respectfully, can't and won't feel the magnitude of this tragedy by those directly affected. Eight minutes at the Fitz was all that he earned for his four-hour dive because of the necessary decompression. This theory was advanced by the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) after the U.S. Coast Guard report and seems to be the most popular among mariners and armchair wreck investigators. The flooding of the cargo hold took place through ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck.. The owners knew of the EF's structural problem, and had the steel already cut to effect yet another repair. 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. In that sense, the Fitzgerald met her fate on the path she took to avoid it. The CURV III unit took 43,000 feet of video tape and 900 photographs of the wreck. The wreck continues to rust and deteriorate over time despite the fresh water nature of Lake Superior. 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. Both theHomerandFitzgeraldwere the largest iron ore carriers built on the Great Lakes. In addition to taking on water after *potentially* hitting bottom near Six fathom Shoals earlier this afternoon, the. 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. 18335 N. Whitefish Point Road They are the last of their kind exposed to the human development and predation on the mainland. The Headstones originally hailing from Kingston, Ont. Another wave just like the first one or bigger hit us again. The Anderson was just approaching Michipicoten, about three miles off the West End Light. 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. 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. There is absolutely no conclusive evidence to determine the cause of the sinking. 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. Other information comes from an interview witn Captain Bernie Cooper shortly before his death in 1993. Cooper radioed theFitzgerald at 7:10 PMuknown to him that it would be the final communication with McSorley. Hull no. 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. A small three room cabin was built on the east shore of Lake Superior adjacent to Deer Lake and the Amphibian base. But we were talking to him about seven and he said that everything was going fine. This is 35 feet above the waterline.. The spring after the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost, the U.S. Coast Guard sent remote cameras more than 500 feet down to it. The retrofit was planned for November 12, 1975 upon completion of the1975 season. Turning to Edmund Fitzgerald's sinking, the above article lets us in on several 'dots', which, when connected, tells why The Pride of the American Side met an avoidable, but preordained death. 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. Caribou Island is an uninhabited island in the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Michipicoten Island. Keep up with the magazine, news and happenings around the Big Lake. One man lived to tell about what happened unlike the Fitz. The caribou were very aggressive, treeing the lighthouse keeper for hours on several occasions. 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. 109 W. Superior St. #200 Duluth, MN 55802 218-722-5002 edit@LakeSuperior.com. It was considered a private hunting preserve through the early 1900s. Fullerton Islands Restaurant Fullerton. At some point it all becomes moot, except for the 29 families who remain, and do without bread from their missing bread-winners. In 2018 6 caribou were moved to Caribou Island from Michipicoten Island to the north, due to pressure from Michipicoten First Nation. Bernie Cooper. One winter, in the 1920s, the caribou walked off the island when the lake froze over. Improvements in personal lifesaving equipment have resulted in suits to protect sailors from hypothermia in Lake Superiors cold waters. Marie, Michigan, during ferocious northwest winds and seas that washed as high as eight to 12 feet over the ships main deck. in 1980, Jacques Cousteau's famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. Whatever the cause, the Fitzgerald took a starboard list as it passed Caribou. I am from Sault Ste Marie Michigan and a former student of the founder of the great lakes shipwreck historical society Tom Farnquist. The bodies have not been recovered. 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. 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. 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. Ahif you want me to, I can, but Im not going to be making any time; Ill be lucky to make two or three miles an hour going back out that way., Well, youll have to make a decision as to whether you will be hazarding your vessel or not, but youre probably one of the only vessels right now that can get to the scene. )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. USS Indianapolis (CL/CA-35) was a Portland-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, named for the Grindstone Island Cars The steel and iron plates still sat on the dock two years later. Winter 2023 NMU School of Art & Design Senior Exhibition Reception, Edmund Fitzgerald: Decades of Speculation, Fascination and Grieving. Diving expeditions on the shoals also found no evidence of any recent groundings there by a ship. This island was considered an emergency landing airport (YCI) during World War II. Marie at 7:39 p.m., continued to try to raise radio contact with the big ship. I myself and my classmates are without a doubt able to state that is not only a prime example of media misinformation. Caribou definition, any of several large, North American deer of the genus Rangifer, related to the reindeer of the Old World. The Coast Guard conducted an extensive and thorough search. 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. He could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar set and could measure the distance between them. In 1977, the U.S Coast Guard pinned the sinking on massive flooding of the cargo hold caused by faulty or poorly fastened hatch covers. The weather had cleared dramatically. 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. 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. The wave worked its way along the deck, crashing on the back of the pilothouse, driving the bow of the Anderson down into the sea. Photo by user "Greenmars" on Wikimedia Commons. Her track along the north shore was standard in inclement weather -- to shelter a bit from north winds. There is no conspiracy or disinformation campaign on that fact. 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 legend lives on from the Chippewa on down 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. On this voyage,Fitzgeraldwas fully loaded with iron ore. During the following three days, the Coast Guard cutter Woodrush, using a sidescan sonar, located two large pieces of wreckage in the same area. The Great Lakes Ore Carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald, Known to Lake Mariners as "The Mighty Fitz". No limit on the Perch, so we returned pretty low in the water. If you purchase a product or register for an account through one of the links on our site, we may receive compensation. The suits are also equipped with flashing lights and radio position beacons. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald lies at the bottom of the southeastern portion of Lake Superior in 530 feet of water. 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. Capt. Theory 2: Six-Fathom Shoal 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, which nestles off the north end of the island with water as shallow as 26 feet. FREE BOXES. The Fitzgerald being the faster took the lead, with the distance between the vessels ranging from 10 to 15 miles. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. However, the Westlake, Ohio-based Lake Carriers Association, representing U.S.-flag vessel operators on the Great Lakes, responded in a letter to the National Transportation Safety Board in September 1977 disagreeing 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 last radio communication between the Fitzgerald and the Anderson was at 7:10 pm. I hear they found the crewmen's bodies and than I heard they never did that this was a rumor. Others overlap in some ways. In 2000, author Hugh Bishop pushed the "Three Sisters" theory about a trio of rogue waves that overwhelmed the Fitzgerald in quick succession. Dave Sproule, a natural heritage education and marketing specialist with Ontarios Department of Environment, Conservation and Parks Land and Water Division in Sudbury, has written Lake Superior is a weathermaker so big it creates its own weather See more. They have persisted where all others have perished. For 17 years the Fitzgerald hauled taconite iron ore from the mines of Duluth, MN to Detroit and other Great Lakes ports setting . However, divers found no recent damage to the shoal after the wreck and the ship's exact course could only be estimated because the Fitzgerald radars were inoperable and the Anderson kept inexact course records during the journey. The following May, 1976, Woodrush was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. 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. Cooper later said he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. At 3:30 pm that afternoon, Captain McSorley radioed Captain Cooper and said: Anderson, this is the Fitzgerald. "I've often wondered whether these two particular seas might have been the ones that finally did the Fitzgerald in, because they were really huge," he said. By this point,McSorely was heard over the radio hollering at his crew to stay off the deck and remain inside the vessel. Was a bad night. 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. From what I know, the Fitzgerald sank 45 years ago as of posting this comment, soon to be 46. 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. But the questions surrounding the cause of the wreck kept mounting and continue to do so. The flooding of the cargo hold took place through ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck.. At the time of the foundering, there was no requirement for depth-finding instruments on commercial vessels. Water intrusion came less than 30 minutes later. Phantom Fireworks is the leading retailer of consumer fireworks in the U.S. Phantom provides the widest range of consumer fireworks in all categories. The lifeboats recovered were unused. 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. With regards to iron ore shipping on the Great Lakes, it most certainly is still taking place. 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.. MLive meteorologist Mark Torregrossa postulates rogue waves as possible based on the 2006 NOAA storm simulation. I have read recently that the shoal near the island doesn't exist but it was from a guy who favors the loose hold cover theory. Great respect must be accorded to the wreck site, which still contains the remains of crew members and is considered a gravesite. Already have an account? However, it resonates. She was under command of Canadian born and highly experienced ship master Captain Ernest M. McSorely. Tweets by @lakesuperiormag !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? It lies entirely within the territorial waters of Canada although only about five kilometres from the international border between Canada and the United States. Near-hurricane force winds seemed to pick up strength throughout the day while visibility was greatly reduced. Don McIsaac observed last July that Gordon Lightfoot, who wrote The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is from my hometown, Orillia. McIsaac, executive vice-president and chief financial officer of Cirrus Aircraft, based at headquarters in Duluth, Minnesota, added, From where I sit now, I can see the port the ship last left.. Captain Cooper maintained that he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. The two ships were in radio contact. 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 the Arthur M. Anderson survived and the Fitzgerald did not. Photo Credit: Greenmars (Wikimedia Commons: Link) Significantly, within a few minutes of passing the shoal, the Fitzs Captain Ernest McSorley reported a starboard list, missing vents and a fence rail down. Reporting to the Anderson, the Fitzs Captain Ernest McSorley revealed the list and had activated two large ballast tank pumps to control it. ADMINISTRATIVE: A body that was seen but not retrieved is not a recovered body. However, Northwestern Mutual apparently decided to remedy the problem regardingFitzgerald'sloose keel. released a very fine and very different tempo cover of Lightfoots The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald last March 15. 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. 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. Officers from the Anderson observed that the Fitzgerald sailed through this exact area. While Northwestern Mutual owned both ships (which woud later prove ironic in theFitzgerald'scase), the freighters were leased out to dedicated shipping companies. Caribou Island is an uninhabited island in the eastern end of Lake Superior, 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Michipicoten Island. The 1976 hit single "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by musician Gordon Lightfoot is the reason why theEdmund Fitzgeraldis currently the most famous shipwreck on the Great Lakes. Corrections on previous comments I feel compelled to add. The grisliest discovery was of a giant oil slick floating atop the lake's surface. Captain Dudley J. Paquette of the SS Wilfred Sykes sailed through the entire two-day storm, was part of the search effort and is a vocal adherent of the idea that the sunken ore carrier suffered stress damage at what he calls the hinge area where the greatest amount of flex is observed in a ships hull. The Coast Guard launched a fixed-wing HU-16 aircraft at 10 pm and dispatched two cutters, the Naugatuck and the Woodrush. This contact or a near miss would damage the hull and allow water to begin accumulating inside the affected ballast tanks. None, of course, were found and only floating debris gave clues that the Fitzgerald and its crew were lost. 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. It happened too fast. At 3:30 PM, Captain McSorely reported to Captain Cooper aboard theAndersonthat theFitzgeraldwas taking on water and had a reported list of 20 degrees towards starboard. For the island near Thunder Bay, see, Caribou Island (near Michipicoten Island), Caribou Island near the international border. The Coast Guard then initiated its search for the missing ship. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. Every year since the sinking, the Episcopal Mariners Church the Maritime Sailors Cathedral on East Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit, along the riverfront, has held a memorial service for the Edmund Fitzgerald crew. As the afternoon wore on, radio communications with the Fitzgerald concerned navigational information but no extraordinarily alarming reports were offered by Captain McSorley. 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. Great respect must be accorded to the wreck site, however, which still contains the remains of crew members and is considered a gravesite. His written report states: At this time I became very concerned about the Fitzgerald couldnt see his lights when we should have. Still later, at about 6 p.m., Woodard called the Fitz to report that the light had just come on at Whitefish Point. The LCA thinks the Fitzgerald grounded on the poorly-marked Six Fathom Shoal northwest of Caribou Island, causing fatal damage to the hull. Our Specialties. 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. 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. 301 did sink that fateful night, all hands, but should it have? The Lake Carriers Association disagreed, proposing that the Six Fathom Shoal was the Fitzgerald's undoing. 400 W. Portage Avenue (A video of the once proud ship transiting the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Heavy snow begins to fall and the Fitzgerald is lost from. When originally built, it was visible for 16 miles (26km) and operated on a 30-second revolving cycle. The debate rages to this day. 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. 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. 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. The first official report on the wreck sparked a flood of second-guessing. But I have to leave the decision up to you., Ill give it a try, but thats all I can do.. The Coast Guard cited reports of damage to the Fitzgerald's hatches that were planned for winter repair. Cooper started to fear the worst and contacted the Coast Guard alerting them to theFtizgerald'sdisappearance. "We always had to go down and pump them out.". 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. Captain Cooper contacted the other ships in the area by radio asking if anyone had seen or heard from the Fitzgerald. Ill give it a try., Do you realize what the conditions are out there?. what is the real truth to this? They therefore have the best genetics for surviving in this area. It is approximately 5.6 kilometres (3.5 mi) long and 2.4 kilometres (1.5 mi) wide, and 1,600 acres (647 ha . Enter the text you see in the image below. Regis, R.S., Patterson, C.J., Wattrus, N., and Rausch, D., 2003. That would seem to indicate that their instruments convinced them that water was leaking into the tank area. It was also revealed that a fence railing on theFitzgerald's deckhad been broken and a number of vent covers were missing. 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.. The search turned up no results for the first hour. Bernie Cooper of the Anderson reported his concern for the Fitzgerald to the Coast Guard station in Sault Ste. 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. 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.. 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. This took them between Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula. She never should have sailed, and could have turned back when "The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound, as a wave broke over the railing." Five years later in 1980, Jacques Cousteaus famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. Cooper tried desperately to raise McSorley on the radio to no avail. The closest communities are Belden to the southwest, Twain to the southeast, Canyondam to the north, and Greenville to the east. George Stegner recalled last year how he was on duty that night: I was on duty this night. The Anderson turned out to be the primary vessel in the search, taking the lead. 4:10 PM - Nov. 10th, 1975 - Eastern Lake Superior, southeast of Caribou Island. The supreme caribou myth ever told is about Santa and his sleigh, but having said that, this seems to be the most famous myth out of all the animal totems. Captain McSorley told Woodard that the ship has a bad list, implying that it had gotten worse since his earlier report to Captain Cooper. Since then, there have been about a half dozen dives to the wreck using deep-diving equipment. [7], These reefs are not coral reefs. While EPIRB would not have aided the crew of the Fitzgerald, it would have identified the sunken ship and given searchers a location to start their effort to find survivors. As the afternoon dragged on, the storm worsened. Contributing factors noted were a lack of internal watertight bulkheads and allowances for more cargo weight during the ship's 17 years afloat. They said, however, they were inclined to accept that the Fitzgerald passed over the Six Fathom Shoal Area as reported by Cooper. '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. He reduced speed to allow the Anderson to close the 17-mile gap between them. 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. 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. Theorists have sized upon the permanent lay-up of the Fitzgerald sister ship, the Arthur Homer, in 1980 as indicative of structural deficiency both vessels. 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 26,116 long tons more than the great iron boat weighed empty. 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. The bad welds were confirmed by the Coast Guard, which approved repairs. Too soon to be coincidence. The mystery is compounded by mud covering key parts of the wreck and a legal prohibition on further dives imposed by the Canadian government.

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