we are holding our
own these five words were the last of
Captain Ernest murle as the ship under
his command soon thereafter slipped
beneath the waves of Lake Superior on
November 10th
1975 thousands of wrecks line the bottom
of the Great Lakes but none more
Infamous than the SS Edmond Fitzgerald
[Music]
[Music]

Ship’s History

at 729 ft long a beam of 75 in a depth
of 39 the Fitz would be the largest
Laker built at the time of her
Construction in 1958 these Dimensions
were the maximum for a ship looking to
use the locks of the St Lawrence River
to reach the Atlantic however the pride
of the American side served a single
mission to shuttle tanite from the iron
mines of Minnesota’s Arrowhead to the
steel mills that lined the Eastern Great
Lakes over the years it carried out its
Mission handily continuously breaking
load records over its career in 17 years
though never seeing the Atlantic the
ship had completed 748 round trips from
the mines to the Mills however trip 749
would prove to be ill- faded the morning
of November 9th 1975 found the Edmund

Final Voyage

Fitzgerald in Superior
Wisconsin conditions were mild that
morning with overcast and a slight 5
knot southeasterly Breeze 800 mil to the
Southwest a trough in the upper
atmosphere is beginning to eject
Northeast this caused the surface load
to develop over the Southern High Plains
which continued to deepen as it tracked
Northeast Fitzgerald departs from Port
in the early afternoon fully loaded with
over 26,00 th tons of Tonite Bound for
Detroit simultaneously the National
Weather Service is eyeing the track of
the strengthening surface low they
forecast it to directly come over Lake
Superior the following day meaning winds
and waves will be problematic for Lakers
traversing the body of water they issue
a gale warning for Lake Superior
departing from Two Harbors Minnesota the
fellow orbo SS Arthur M Anderson
captained by Jesse Bernie Cooper gains a
visual on the Fitzgerald the two ships
would closely screen each other for the
voyage across Superior as conditions
slowly began to deteriorate they
mutually elect to head for the northern
Canadian Shoreline which should shelter
them from tomorrow’s waves at 7:00 p.m.
local time the surface low had deepened
to 993 mbars spawning the localized
tornado outbreak over Eastern Iowa into
the night winds and rain out of the
Northeast continued to increase with the
1:00 a.m. weather report from the
Fitzgerald recording 52 knot winds and
10t waves reports like this and from
other vessels prompted the NWS to
upgrade their gale warning to a storm
warning as Dawn broke both the Anderson
and Fitzgerald crossed from American to
Canadian Waters the low is now centered
over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at an
impressive 982 mbars at midday the two
vessels would enjoy a brief moment of
calm the low pass directly over them in
the real danger Loom the backside of the
low brought with it even stronger winds
out of the Northwest unlike being ahead
of the low they were now behind the cold
front where a Brisk air Mast plowed in
what was once rain is now a thick
snowfall drastically dropping visibility
as they threaded the gap between mchip
Paden and Caribou Islands Captain mly
radioed Captain Cooper of the Anderson
Anderson this is the Fitzgerald I have
sustained some topside damage I have a
fence re down two vents lost or damaged
in a list I’m checking down will you
stay by me till I get to White Fish
Charlie on that
Fitzgerald Anderson could only watch the
Fitzgerald through its surface radar
registering is a blip 9 miles off their
bow at 3:30 p.m. news only got worse 30
minutes later Anderson this is the
Fitzgerald I have lost both Radars can
you provide me with radar plots till we
reach White Fish Bay Charlie on that
fitgerald we’ll keep you advised of
position for the next hour murley’s
situation grows increasingly dire on the
fits ahead of the two Lakers is the
avors a Swedish ore carrier Bound for
the Atlantic murly asks for any vessel
to confirm the status of white fish
point lighthouse in radio Beacon as they
are essentially blind avor confirms the
light but is unable to dial into the
beacon the following radio exchange
between the two ships paints a bleak
picture
the wind is really howling down here
what are the conditions where you are
don’t let nobody on Deck what’s that F
unclear over I have a bad list lost both
Radars and I’m taking on heavy C’s over
the deck one of the worst C’s I’ve ever
been in if I’m correct you have two
Radars they’re both gone back on the
Anderson winds ripped at a sustained 65
mph with hurricane Force gusts over 80
near 700 p.m. Captain Cooper braces for
two massive 35- ft rogue waves
approaching off of the starbird quarter
water floods the deck of the Anderson
and smashes into the back of the Pilot
House partially damaging The Vessel
nevertheless the ship weathered the
impact first mate Morgan Clark then
radios the Fitzgerald to check on their
condition Fitzgerald this is Anderson
have you checked
down yes we have how are you making out
with your problem we are holding our own
okay fine I’ll be talking to you later
except the Anderson would not talk to
Murley later 5 minutes after that
exchange the Fitzgerald enters a Squall
obscuring it from the Anderson’s radar
it never reemerges and a break in the
precipitation reveals no lights coming
from where the ship should be prompting
the Anderson to radio the Coast
Guard once reaching the safety of White
Fish Bay the Coast Guard with no assets
in the immediate area asks for the to do
the impossible Venture back into greater
Lake Superior to search for
survivors the Anderson and fellow bulk
carrier SS William Clay Ford bravely
headed back out into the storm in an
attempt to locate the 29 missing Sailors
they would be unsuccessful finding only
bits of small debris it would take a

Immediate Aftermath

full 3 days for a US Naval sub hunting
aircraft to detect the presence of the
Edmund Fitzgerald’s wreck a Navy
submersible offici confirmed the
identity of the doomed Laker the first
and last 250 ft of the ship remained
largely intact with the bow still
upright and the stern keeled over ships
like the Anderson the same type of
vessel as the Fitz weathered the storm
with relatively minor damage what led to
the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald
seemed to be a compound of
issues investigations into the sinking

Sinking Investigations and Theories

were conducted by the US Coast Guard and
the national Transportation safety board
after over a year of scouring over
evidence the Coast Guard published their
report without a conclusive root cause
however the most likely cause in their
estimation was a flooding of the cargo
hold via ineffective hatch closures as
waves flooded the deck tanite is a dense
cargo so even at Max load the ship had
plenty of empty space in the cargo hold
hatch covers were damaged or missing
over many of the openings when surveying
the wreck including some with signs of
external buckling load water Ingress
over time in the hold would have easily
caused a list that doomed the ship in
the peak of the storm the NTSB would
soon after come to a similar likely
scenario the lake carriers Association
fought these conclusions back hard
Captain Cooper went on the record
providing a much different explanation
as to what doomed Edmund
Fitzgerald shortly before murly radioed
the Anderson the first signs of trouble
Cooper commented on the bridge that the
Fitzgerald was much too close to Six
fathom sh for his comfort this sh
located just north of caribou Island
lies only 11 ft below the waves had the
vessel bottomed out amid ships that
could have easily caused railings to
snap in tension and compromised the hull
the Canadian Coast Guard resurveyed the
area in
1976 discovering a mile east of 6 fathom
that was previously Uncharted in lie
directly in the path of the Fitzgerald’s
final course all of this only further
cemented cap Captain Cooper’s belief
that the Fitzgerald was already
beginning to sink when murly first
radioed of the ship’s issues at 3:30
p.m. there was no way in his mind that a
leaky hatch or vent covers could have
caused a list so quickly the down
railing also pointed to another major
possibility similar to the grounding The
Edmond Fitzgerald could have suffered a
catastrophic structural Hull failure due
to fatigue stress fatigue stress is the
weakening of a material over time that
had been subjected to repeated loads
given that the Fitz was the first Seaway
Max vessel for the St Lawrence River its
proportions made it a rather lanky
vessel especially if it were to sail in
the ocean former crew of the Fitzgerald
stated that it would Flex like a diving
board in rough conditions over time the
welded joints of the hull to the Keel
could have fatigued from repeated
bending wave after wave and the storm of
November 1975 or even a slight contact
with the sh was the straw that broke the
camel’s back this Theory regained steam
a few years after the sinking when the
Fitzgerald’s sister ship the SS Arthur B
Homer was scrapped just months after an
extensive overhaul by the ship Builder
when the NTSB asked to check out the
vessel the ship Builder denied
permission these actions raised
questions that maybe the welded holes of
the sister ships were inferior to their
riveted counterparts ultimately though
the ntsb’s rebuttal for both the
grounding and structural failures was
that there was no indication of the
visible areas of the Hall of either
event taking
place however to further refute the
critical central part of the hall that
would have seen the greatest bending
moment load was the most damaged part of
the ship in the sinking making it nearly
impossible to
confirm the final moments of the
Fitzgerald were likely quick and similar
in nature the lack of distress signal
meant that the Fitz likely took a large
wave from the starboard quarter that
completely submerged the forward Bridge
This Was Then followed by subsequent
waves that further drove the ship into
the surf likely buckling the cargo
hatches inward as seen on the wreck
fully flooding the forward holds whether
already compromised or not the hull
would not be able to Bear the brunt of
all the water forward of the stern
snapping the mighty bulk carrier in two
the quick nature of the ship’s demise
led many to point to the two massive
rogue waves that Captain Cooper had
experienced on the air Anderson shortly
before the loss of the Fitzgerald they
did travel in the general direction of
murly ship and the further fetch could
have grown them into even greater waves
that an already battered Fitzgerald
would not have been able to
survive across all of the theories the

Storm Reanalysis

weather was undoubtedly a major
component 30 years after the sinking
National Weather Service meteorologists
used modern computer modeling to create
a simulation of that storm in November
of
1975 key results of This research noted
that the Northwestern winds were not
only Amplified by vertical mixing but
also the terrain of Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula this coupled with the
extremely long fetch of the waves to
compound and grow meant that the
Fitzgerald steamed into the most intense
waves and winds on all of Lake Superior
at the worst possible time it was found
that the frequency of a storm of this
caliber on Lake Superior wasn’t super
rare with a return period of roughly 2
years what separated it from other
storms however was the waves traveled
from west to east rather than the
typical north to south in all of the
records available no storm ever on Lake
Superior had waves of over 20 ft that
traveled west to east this makes one of
the last comments of Captain Ernest
Murley a 44-year veteran of saing the
Great Lakes unequivocally true he had
never seen a sea as bad as November the
10th

Conclusion

1975 while the debate of what doomed the
Edmund Fitzgerald still persists its
sinking prompted a number of
recommendations that ultimately made the
Great Lakes shipping Fleet a safer one
Fitzgerald Remains the largest vessel
ever lost in the Great Lakes and her
Legacy is one of great speculation but
yet it is forever immortalized in the
1976 Ballad The Wreck of the Edmund
Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot dedicated
to the 29 Souls that went down with her
on that Infamous night in November