The fateful, final journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald | Hacker News Reader

The fateful, final journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald

shipwreckmuseum.com

81 pointsDrScump57 comments

Interestingly, the SS Arthur M. Anderson which was 10mi behind the Fitz when it went down, is still in use 70 years since launch and currently in Lake Huron.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/details/ships/mmsi:3669720...

Lakers seem to have unusually long lives for ships because of the unique nature of the cargo carried, and the lack of salt water. As far as I can tell, many are retired because metal fatigue reasons, or an ship that cannot be upgraded to diesel propulsion.

What will put them out of service in fairly short order is salt exposure from carrying salt.

Cargill has a big salt mine in Cleveland that extends several miles under Lake Erie[0]. I don't know where else they're mining it, but it gets shipped in lakers, and it's pretty rough on them for obvious reasons.

I toured the Mather[1] some years back (take the below decks and engineering tour if they're offering it), and the guide made a point that the fact that the Mather hadn't carried salt was a big factor in how well-preserved she is. Carrying salt is apparently the last stop before the ship breakers for a lot of lake steamers.

[0] http://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2017/12/cargill-salt-mine-cl...

[1] https://greatscience.com/explore/exhibits/william-g-mather-s...

Fun fact: I went to school with the CEO of Cargill's kid. Huge douchebag

Edit: Just looked it up and he hasn't been CEO since 2013

The world's largest salt mine is underneath Lake Huron near Goderich, Ontario. I believe lakers pick up loads of salt there as well.

Things I didn't know even though this is one of my favorite songs:

1. The person the ship was named after died 27 years after the ship named after him did (he hadn't wanted the naming, the board overruled him).

2. The wreck is in Canada.

3. Gordon changed the lyrics of his live performances to take in new information not available at the time of writing.

Great Lakes have claimed so many ships, deadliest being the Lady Elgin with a loss of approximately 300 lives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Lady_Elgin).

The huge waves that brought down Edmund Fitzgerald are thought to be caused by the mythical Gales of November phenomenon on Lake Superior (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/11/10/lake-superiors-gale...), which is due to cold Arctic air from north colliding with very warm air from the Gulf of Mexico (we had 70s in Chicago this week!).

From the MPRNews article:

"John Swenson, a professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Minnesota Duluth who grew up on Lake Superior, has looked at records of the biggest storms over the past 30 years.

'I find that the average storm, so in terms of time of the year, actually falls on about Nov. 10. So long story short, we get a storm like this, you know, on average on Nov. 10.' "

> Many of these ships were never found, so the exact number of shipwrecks in the Lakes is unknown; the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum approximates 6,000 ships and 30,000 lives lost, while historian and mariner Mark Thompson has estimated that the total number of wrecks is likely more than 25,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shipwrecks_in_the_Grea...

This year fit the pattern quite well. I heard on the radio that there were 20' waves on Superior the other day.

> deadliest being the Lady Elgin with a loss of approximately 300 lives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Lady_Elgin).

The wikipedia page isn't quite clear on the matter:

> Professor Mason and Lieutenant Bartlett asserted that a principal cause of the collision was the lack of a $15 lantern on the Augusta

> The judgement was based on a law that not only gave sail the right of way over steam, but did not require sailing vessels to carry running lights.

It didn't matter that the Augusta was a sailing ship, it still had the right of way over the Lady Elgin, and it was the duty of the Lady Elgin to alter course to avoid the collision. But because the Augusta was a sailing ship it didn't need adequate lighting, so the Lady Elgin didn't see it until it was too late.

By the way, the law [1] right now still gives sailing vessels right of way over motor vessels. The location of the wreck, just offshore from Chicago, 700+ miles from the nearest ocean, is subject to the international treaty governing the avoidance of collisions at sea.

[1] https://www.imo.org/en/About/Conventions/Pages/COLREG.aspx

More historical photos that include some shots of the underwater remains of the wreck:

https://www.mlive.com/news/2021/11/wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzg...

If you haven't visited the Great Lakes, it can be hard to fathom how vast they are. They are really more like inland seas than lakes. At its deepest point, Lake Superior is about 1300ft deep, and edge-to-edge it measures about 350 miles across. If Lake Superior were drained, it could cover the entirety of North and South America with a foot of freshwater.

The northwestern coast of Michigan and the Upper Peninsula that bounds Lake Superior is absolutely worth a trip if you haven't been there.

If you’re able to time a visit to the locks in Sault Ste., MI for the last Friday in June you can take a tour that allows you to walk out onto the locks and get up close with the freighters. There are usually some other special tours around town for this “Engineer’s Day” event.

Our visit one year happened to fall on that day and it was an unexpected treat.

I went through them for the first time last year, without ever having seen them. I think I'd be equally excited either way. Working, I didn't get to appreciate them from the other angle, I assume equally as neat.

The most wild thing about the great lakes for me, is that there's enormous islands in the middle which you can visit.

Beaver Island has an entire year-round community. Farms, wineries, a small airport. It was featured on some survival show I caught late at night once.

The Manitou islands used to be inhabited. They have found arrowheads on the island 7000 years old. They went through a logging colony, to a farming colony, to them mostly just a collection of summer cottages, before the state finally bought them and made them a wild camping nature preserve. 5 miles offshore, and within sight of other massive islands which have their own wild histories.

Lastly - South Manitou island has a shipwreck from the 60's along its shore you can still explore and dive.

Mackinac island is another year-round community. No cars are allowed, and the historical forts from the 1800's have been all preserved. It's the only place I've visited which has a real, "Pirates of the Caribbean" feel to it.

Put-in-Bay, where fishermen go to party. There's a lot of these places!

> The most wild thing about the great lakes for me, is that there's enormous islands in the middle which you can visit.

On the largest island, in the largest lake in the world, there are multiple lakes. The largest of the lakes has multiple islands.

It is possible to go camping on the largest island in the largest lake in the largest island in the largest lake int he world.

https://www.google.com/maps/@48.0097822,-88.7714891,461m/dat...

Note that there is no lake on Ryan Island and the Moose Boulder doesn't exist. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/13/815546895/the-lonely-non-isla...

---

Mackinac island is known for its rock skipping tournament. ... and the former Vice President had an eight car motorcade there. https://www.businessinsider.com/mike-pence-car-free-mackinac...

A fun read on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_islands_and_lakes

The most fascinating aspect of the incident to me is that the Edmund Fitzgerald was 728' long and sank in 535 feet of water. One video I saw analyzing the sinking showed that it was possible the ship's bow was forced down hit the bottom with 200' or so still above the surface.

Can you imagine the horror of being on the bridge, thinking that the bow has just submerged into a wave, and only realizing it’s not going to come back up when you feel the ship slam into the lake floor?

For reference, that would be at least a 47° incline, or about 108% grade. You'd probably realize the ship isn't going to come back when you reach 20%-ish grade.

Lakers usually have their bridge at the bow.

As did the Fitz herself.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald#/media/Fi...>

It's not exactly comforting, but in truth the ship broke in two, so that scenario is unlikely.

If memory serves, the Russian Kursk sank in water less deep than it was long, too. And in one piece.

IANANE (not a Naval Engineer), but that scenario sounds wildly implausible. It's easy to "do" it with a scale model toy, or simplistic geometry - but out in real life, at the size of a lake freighter, the square-cube law is absolutely merciless. Below (very optimistic guess) ~120' depth, the ship's hull can no longer hold air, to provide buoyancy. Recall that the water pressure a few hundred feet down is enough to crush a WWI submarine like an empty beer can in your fist. And lake freighters hulls are not built to anything remotely resembling WWI military submarine standards.

I strongly believe that iron ore liquefaction ultimately proved the ship's demise. More about how this can happen here[1]. The facts all line up:

  - Tons of water likely getting into the cargo hold, wetting it down, especially if the 
    crew didn't take care of shutting the cargo hold top.
  - Lots of rocking back and forth
  - They were carrying tons of iron ore
  - That stuff can absorb a ton of water, then when rocked, let it all loose at once, 
    thus causing a top-heavy rocking motion that will capsize a vessel within minutes.

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG_EknYj5go

Iron ore liquefaction is still a deadly problem for bulk carriers today and is suspected to be the cause of several recent sinkings.

https://gcaptain.com/cargo-liquefaction-continues-to-pose-de...

You may be right about the liquefaction, but there is zero chance the crew forgot to shut the cargo holds properly. They knew they were heading into a storm and everyone on that ship understood their lives depended on securing all the hatches.

Well worth a read, if you're seriously interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Fitzgerald#Maintenance

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Fitzgerald#Structural_f...

Huge waves (running down the ship's length) obviously put extreme stresses on the hull of a long, thin, heavily-loaded ship. And the Fitzgerald's wreck is broken into two pieces, right in the middle.

I'm a child of the 70s. I grew up with this song being everywhere for a long time, but I never really paid attention, and I lived far from the Great Lakes, so it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized it was about a contemporary disaster and not some long-ago age-of-sail thing.

The song was released in 1976, and details a sinking from only a year before.

(Lost 47 years ago today.)

This told me nothing Gordan Lightfoot hadn’t already.

Obligatory link to the Gordon Lightfoot song about this disaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzTkGyxkYI

Obligatory link to the Paul Gross song, 32 Down on the Robert Mackenzie, which was composed after the show (Due South) was planning to do a story (featuring the song) about the Edmund Fitzgerald, but was convinced by the families of the deceased that it was better to craft something fictional: https://youtu.be/_d-t0959C3A

Oh wow... I haven't seen (or really even thought about) that show in ~25 years. That was one of my favorite shows in my early teens. I wonder how well it would hold up these days. I remember it being super campy (in a fun way).

Yeah, it's insanely campy, but other than that, I think it's really timeless.

What a song — chills me every time. I can’t think of another historical and/or tragedy song that grips me as much as this one.

Iron Maiden's adaptation of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner comes close. You have to get into the original work and perhaps have similar life experiences to appreciate it I suppose.

The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is more accessible.

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1696/brief-review-t...

Extremely overplayed, "American Pie" by Don McLean is about the plane crash that killed 4 American rock stars all at the same time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died

That song was always more about the narrator of the song, to me.

Hellsongs' cover of "Run to the Hills" (originally by Iron Maiden) is worth a listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AguuHDW42OQ

(Since Iron Maiden got another mention for Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I'd bet they have more to offer, but I'm not that knowledgeable about their work.)

On a less historical, more personal tragedy level, "Cat's in the Cradle" has always hit me way harder than I would expect (both as a kid and an adult):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%27s_in_the_Cradle

... gotta make a phone call now ... :-/

Well, if we're listing songs that hit ya in the feels, J Frank Wilson and The Cavaliers "Last Kiss" is right there

https://youtu.be/bh4se9YMV3A

As it's listing similar songs time, Genesis' Driving the last spike https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_the_Last_Spike fits in the historical(ish) story as ten minute long popular song territory.

Arguably you could also include Telegraph Road (Dire Straits, 1982) although its story is even more generic.

I was introduced to this song by a music teacher in elementary school, and I remember being wow'd by the story and thinking the song sounded cool as hell. I've almost never listened to it since then, but it has remained ingrained in my head for almost 30 years. Every couple of weeks it pops into my head, clear as a bell.

Not sure why I'm sharing this, but yeah...

Rheostatics also do a great cover, here’s the version from their live album (studio recording is also good): https://youtu.be/7J5hJQtMlE0

One of my favorite songs. So many haunting lyrics. I've always been fascinated by "Superior, they said, never gives up her dead..." I've read it is in reference to the fact that because the lake is so cold, sunken bodies will not decompose and resurface. Of course, it could just be folklore.

There’s a well known wreck (SS Kamloops) popular among divers that has a body in the engine room. Divers call it “Whitey” because it has saponified, and thus appears similar to a bar of soap.

Kamloopsian here - TIL.

Story of Alice Bettridge[0] is chilling.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Kamloops

For anyone who is interested, there's a youtube channel ("Ask A mortician") which did an excellent video on the Fitzgerald: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Lg9HygEJc

To me, the old cook was the hero of that song.

Yes!

  When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'
  "Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya"
  At seven PM, a main hatchway caved in, he said
  "Fellas, it's been good to know ya"

That's the lyric Lightfoot changed when sung live, to take into account the more recent hypothesis on how it sank:

    At seven p.m. it grew dark; it was then

Which is nicer to the crew (doesn't imply it was a mistake on their part) but doesn't really quite flow as nicely.

Relatedly, the Punch Brothers recently cover-albumed Tony Rice's cover of the track:

https://youtu.be/DhTRNU1mnVA

I'm not sure if this is a sea shanty, but it reminds me of "Blow the Man Down"[0] which is one.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blow_the_Man_Down

Obligatory link to the parody of the Gordon Lightfoot song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udZFnUb4Q6A

Gordon Lightfoot

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