Screenshot / Remembering the SS Edmund Fitzgerald
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10-November 22
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Harborside Project
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Thought I'd post a (highly unfinished) update of my current project on the anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. I also provided a little write-up in the comments. For clarity, the ship in my screen is not the Fitzgerald. More details to come at some point in the future. Yes this is from the same project I posted a screen of in the discord a while back. Progress is very slow...
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On the afternoon of November 9th, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald set out from Superior, Wisconsin at the western end of lake Superior with her crew of 29 men and payload of over 26,000 tons of iron ore. Her heading was to be eastward across the shipping lanes of the Great Lakes with the crew planning on unloading her cargo at the steel mills near Detroit, Michigan. The journey usually took an average of 5 days at a speed of about 16 miles per hour (26 kilometers per hour). November on the Great Lakes is known for stormy weather, and the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted a storm would pass south of Lake Superior on November 10th.
Early in her journey, the Fitzgerald was joined by the Arthur M. Anderson, bound for the steel mills in Gary, Indiana, and the two ships continued into the now darkness of the night hours. At 7:00pm, the NWS issued gale warnings across the whole of Lake Superior, causing the two ships to alter course to follow along the norther shore for safety. The Anderson and Fitzgerald encountered a winter storm at 1:00 am on November 10th, causing the Anderson to slow down in the rough waters, while the Fitzgerald continued at a steady pace. In the early morning hours of November 10th, the ships reported wind speeds of over 60 mph and 10 ft tall waves.
The morning storm let up a little during the day, but in the afternoon falling snow reduced visibility as conditions once again deteriorated. The Fitzgerald reported taking on water, having developed a list, and continuously running two of her six bilge pumps. Around 4:10 pm, the Fitzgerald told the Anderson she would slow down so the Anderson could catch up. The Anderson reported sustained winds of 67 mph with gusts up to 86 mph. Wave heights were reported to be 25 ft, with some rouge waves up to 35 ft tall. Another ship in the area was in radio contact, and testified that some time after 5:30pm they heard the captain of the Fitzgerald say, “I have a bad list, I have lost both radars, and am taking heavy seas over the deck in one of the worst seas I have ever been in.” None of the ships in the area had visible sights of each other in the storm.
Around 7:10pm, the Anderson radioed the Fitzgerald to tell her of an upbound ship, and asked how she was doing.
The captain of the Fitzgerald responded, “We are holding our own.”
The Fitzgerald was never heard from again. No distress signal was received, and ten minutes later, the Anderson lost the ability either to reach the Fitzgerald by radio or detect her on radar.
According to local news outlets, all that was found of the mighty freighter in the days following the wreck were “an oil slick, life jackets, and some empty life boats,” though eventually the wreck would be found at the bottom of the lake. All 29 of the Fitzgerald's crew perished, and remain at their final resting place 530ft below the water's surface, along with the two halves of the broken ship and her payload of iron ore spilled over the lake bed. Due to water temperatures averaging 32 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit (0 to 13 degrees Celsius), Lake Superior is known to “never give up her dead,” since the cold temperatures inhibit bacteria growth that would normally decay a body and bloat it with gas, causing it to float. Most of the sailors that have perished in Lake Superior remain at the bottom.
The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald remains the last major shipping disaster on Lake Superior, and is memorialized in books, museums, documentaries, and Gordon Lightfoot's “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” featured on his album “Summertime Dream.”
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her"
This appears to be the latest Queen of the Lakes, the Paul R Tregurtha!
(Or at least some 1000-footer of the Interlake Steamship Company.)