Last night marked the 38th anniversary of the tragic sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a record breaking bulk carrier that operated on the Great Lakes from 1958 until 1975. Launched on June 7, 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was, for a time, the longest ship on the Great Lakes. Owned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance, but operated by Ogleby Norton Corporation, the Edmund Fitzgerald hauled ore from Minnesota’s iron mines to iron works in Michigan and Ohio. During her 17 years of service, the ship set multiple haulage records and became a local legend in her own time.
On the of afternoon of November 9, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald departed Superior, Wisconsin bound for Zug Island, Michigan with a cargo of 26,000 tons of ore pellets. As the ship made its way along the Canadian coast, it ran into a storm at 1am on November 10th. The Fitzgerald reported winds of 52 knots and 10 foot waves, but soldiered on through the night. As November 10th wore on, the storm increased in intensity with rogue waves as tall as 35 feet assaulting the ship with massive walls of water. Suddenly, shortly after her last radio communication at 7:10pm, the Fitzgerald plummeted to the lake floor and disappeared from the radar screen of a nearby ship. Despite a search by both nearby commercial vessels and the US Coast Guard, not a single member of the Fitzgerald’s 29 crew was found.
A subsequent search by the US Navy and the US Coast Guard discovered the wreck of the Fitzgerald in 530 feet of water. The ship had been rent in two and the bow and stern sections approximately 150 feet apart from one another. Several expeditions to the wreck site have occurred over the years, including one by two intrepid deep sea scuba divers. The expeditions have recovered the ship’s bell and helped clarify some of the facts surrounding the cause of the ship’s sinking which has never been fully explained.
Shipwreckology 