#EDMUND FITZGERALD LIFEBOAT FULL#

She may have run aground on an uncharted shoal near Six Fathom Shoal (shoaling), causing structural damage that allowed the strong waves to buckle the ship or that she may have suffered structural damage previous to the final voyage. She may have been weighed down by improperly fastened hatch covers that allowed water to flood the cargo holds, further aggravated by a lack of watertight bulkheads. The Fitzgerald may have been swamped by a rogue wave, given that Captain Cooper of Anderson reported that his ship was hit by two 30 to 35 foot waves, going over the aft cabins and the bridge deck, possibly followed by a third, all of which continued eastbound and would have struck the Fitzgerald around the time she sank. The exact cause of the sinking remains unknown to this day, though many theories have emerged from various investigations. Most of the crew were from Ohio and Wisconsin and ranged in age from 20 year old watch-keeper Karl Peckol to 63 year old Canadian-born, American resident Captain McSorley, who was preparing to retire at the end of the shipping season. To honour the Fitzgerald’s crew, the Mariners’ Church in Detroit rang its bell 29 times (once for each man lost), a practice the church continued to do during an annual memorial ceremony, along with a reading of the names, until 2006, when the church expanded the ceremony to commemorate the loss of all mariners lost on the Great Lakes. Navy in May 1976 found that the Edmund Fitzgerald, broken into two pieces in 530 feet of water. Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft, equipped with sonar equipment, located an underwater wreck three days later on 14 November, approximately 15 nautical miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay.Ī dive by the U.S. Navy searched the area for the next three days, finding only found scattered debris, including lifeboats, flotation rings and rafts. No distress signal was received by any ships or shore stations and efforts to raise the Fitzgerald on radio failed.Īircraft from the U.S. Ten Minutes later, the Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared from the Anderson’s radar.

McSorley shortly after 7pm: “We’re holding our own.” “Bernie” Cooper, who received the Fitzgerald’s last radio transmission from Captain Ernest M. The two ships maintained constant radio contact due to the Fitzgerald losing their radars, with the Anderson attempted to guide the Fitzgerald from 10 miles to her stern. Anderson, a freighter that had been sailing in tandem with the Fitzgerald. The storm on that November day was one of the worst seen in years on Lake Superior, with near hurricane-force winds and waves reported up to 35 feet high.Ī search was immediately launched by the U.S Coast Guard, along with several other ships including the SS William Clay Ford and the SS Arthur M. She was a record-setting workhorse, often beating her own shipping records, with very luxurious cabins for a lake freighter that featured deep pile carpeting, tiled bathrooms, air conditioning throughout and two staterooms for guest passengers. The Edmund Fitzgerald, launched on 7 June 1958, was named after the President and Chairman of the Board of her owner, the Northwest Mutual Life Insurance Company. Her last known position was about 15 nautical miles west of Whitefish Bay, near the twin cities of Sault Ste.

#EDMUND FITZGERALD LIFEBOAT FULL#

On 10 November 1975, the American Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald vanished in a violent storm while on its final run of the season from Superior, Wisconsin, near Duluth, enroute to the steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit, Michigan, carrying a full cargo of iron ore pellets. The biggest of the lakes is Lake Superior, a lake that can turn violent when the weather turns bad.

The Great Lakes have been a major shipping route across the northern United States and southern Canada since the first fir traders came to North America. The bell from the Edmund Fitzgerald on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan.

Edmund fitzgerald lifeboat