By Alicia Cruz
The Black Urban Times
November 10, 2010
The Mariners Memorial Lighthouse at Belanger Park was the site of a memorial service held Wednesday evening to commemorate the sinking of the SS Edmund (The Big Fitz) Fitzgerald 35 years ago. River Rouge hosted the somber event because the vessel's maiden voyage was from the city in 1958.
The sinking is one of the most notable peacetime maritime disasters and the most famous in the history of the Great Lakes. It was the inspiration of Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 hit song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".
The freighter, considered to be one of the largest ships at maximum size to fit through the canal locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway, was measured to be 729 feet in length, 38 feet in height with a depth of 39 feet. She was built by Great Lakes Engineering Works of River Rouge, Michigan
The ship set sail November 10, 1975 from Superior, Wisconsin under the command of Captain Ernest M. McSorley en route to a steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit carrying cargo of Taconite.
While the weather forecast called for a storm to pass over Lake Superior and small craft advisories were issued, it was nothing out of the ordinary for the month of November, and The Fitzgerald set out. A second freighter, The SS Arthur M. Anderson, en route to Gary, Indiana met with The Fitzgerald and followed the ship's lead.
Later that afternoon, cruising at 16 mph (14 knots), the freighters crossed Lake Superior, and found themselves entangled in a massive winter storm as they battled winds in excess of 58 mph, accompanied by gusts of up to 100 mph and waves that reached as high as 35 feet.
With their visibility obscured by heavy snow, the freighters altered their courses northward, seeking shelter along the Canadian coast. They crossed to Whitefish Bay to approach the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, which were closed due to the intensifying storm.
Later that day, as local forecasters reported winds of 50 knots on eastern Lake Superior, the second freighter was facing 86 mph hurricane-force gusts (75 Knots).
At approximately 3:30 p.m., The Fitzgerald radioed the Anderson to report that she was taking on water and had top-side damage.
Sometime after 4 p.m. on that fateful Sunday, Captain McSorley radioed the U.S. Coast Guard station in Grand Marais, Michigan inquiring about the operational status of the Whitefish Point light and navigational radio beacon. Captain Cedric Woodard of the Avafors responded stating that both the light and radio direction beacon were out. When the Captain of the doomed freighter responded to Woodward, he reported that "The Big Fitz" was fighting heavy seas over it's deck, had lost both radars and was listing badly to one side.
"We're in a big sea. I've never seen anything like it in my life," McSorley said.
According to Naveweaps.com, a Coast Guard plane later caught up to the distressed vessel and noticed that it was sitting extremely low in the water. Within 10 minutes, the Coast Guard Crew stated the ship "dipped her bows into a trough, and never came back up. She rolled over and was on the bottom of the ocean inside of a minute."
The last transmission from the Fitzgerald came at approximately 7:10 p.m., and she sank having sent no distress signal. All 29 crew members aboard, ranging in age from 21 to 63, perished that day.
Many found it difficult to believe that the seasoned crew aboard the freighter did not realize the massive ship was in peril until moments before it sank, but it's true.
As the Coast Guard crew began to video tape the ship, they radioed the crew of the Fitzgerald to offer assistance. The crew responded that they needed "no help," according to Navweaps.com.
Loaded with taconite, a type of small iron ore pellet, The Fitzgerald was already sitting very low in the water. The pellets are porous, so a vessel laden with such cargo in the midst of a treacherous storm is ripe for sinking as the pellets will easily absorb water and rapidly increase in weight as they are exposed to water.
As The Fitzgerald battled the gale and high seas that day, water washed over it's main deck causing the vessel to become dangerously overloaded, which caused it to sink even lower (they left port with 26,000 tons of taconite). Once she was hit by that large wave, the vessel was swamped, broke into two pieces and sank like a rock approximately 17 miles away from Whitefish Point off Michigan's upper peninsula. Such weather conditions would not have given the crew a steady waterline to go by, rendering them unable to notice the slow sinking of the vessel.
The Fitzgerald's final resting place remains on the floor of Lake Superior, the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes, in two pieces. The stern rests upside-down, 170 feet from the bow section as shreds of her 200-foot collapsed center section litter the floor of the massive lake.
As Lightfoot immortalizes in his song, the church bell did chime, " 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald," at the Maritime Church in Detroit. Every year, on the anniversary of the tragedy, family members and friends gather at Whitefish Point to commiserate as they remember The Fitzgerald crew.
Special Thanks to Thomas Farnquist
Weather at Paradise, Michigan
Gordon Lightfoot's Song, "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald"
The Mariners Memorial Lighthouse at Belanger Park was the site of a memorial service held Wednesday evening to commemorate the sinking of the SS Edmund (The Big Fitz) Fitzgerald 35 years ago. River Rouge hosted the somber event because the vessel's maiden voyage was from the city in 1958.
The sinking is one of the most notable peacetime maritime disasters and the most famous in the history of the Great Lakes. It was the inspiration of Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 hit song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".
The freighter, considered to be one of the largest ships at maximum size to fit through the canal locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway, was measured to be 729 feet in length, 38 feet in height with a depth of 39 feet. She was built by Great Lakes Engineering Works of River Rouge, Michigan
The ship set sail November 10, 1975 from Superior, Wisconsin under the command of Captain Ernest M. McSorley en route to a steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit carrying cargo of Taconite.
While the weather forecast called for a storm to pass over Lake Superior and small craft advisories were issued, it was nothing out of the ordinary for the month of November, and The Fitzgerald set out. A second freighter, The SS Arthur M. Anderson, en route to Gary, Indiana met with The Fitzgerald and followed the ship's lead.
Later that afternoon, cruising at 16 mph (14 knots), the freighters crossed Lake Superior, and found themselves entangled in a massive winter storm as they battled winds in excess of 58 mph, accompanied by gusts of up to 100 mph and waves that reached as high as 35 feet.
With their visibility obscured by heavy snow, the freighters altered their courses northward, seeking shelter along the Canadian coast. They crossed to Whitefish Bay to approach the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, which were closed due to the intensifying storm.
Later that day, as local forecasters reported winds of 50 knots on eastern Lake Superior, the second freighter was facing 86 mph hurricane-force gusts (75 Knots).
At approximately 3:30 p.m., The Fitzgerald radioed the Anderson to report that she was taking on water and had top-side damage.
Sometime after 4 p.m. on that fateful Sunday, Captain McSorley radioed the U.S. Coast Guard station in Grand Marais, Michigan inquiring about the operational status of the Whitefish Point light and navigational radio beacon. Captain Cedric Woodard of the Avafors responded stating that both the light and radio direction beacon were out. When the Captain of the doomed freighter responded to Woodward, he reported that "The Big Fitz" was fighting heavy seas over it's deck, had lost both radars and was listing badly to one side.
"We're in a big sea. I've never seen anything like it in my life," McSorley said.
According to Naveweaps.com, a Coast Guard plane later caught up to the distressed vessel and noticed that it was sitting extremely low in the water. Within 10 minutes, the Coast Guard Crew stated the ship "dipped her bows into a trough, and never came back up. She rolled over and was on the bottom of the ocean inside of a minute."
The last transmission from the Fitzgerald came at approximately 7:10 p.m., and she sank having sent no distress signal. All 29 crew members aboard, ranging in age from 21 to 63, perished that day.
Many found it difficult to believe that the seasoned crew aboard the freighter did not realize the massive ship was in peril until moments before it sank, but it's true.
As the Coast Guard crew began to video tape the ship, they radioed the crew of the Fitzgerald to offer assistance. The crew responded that they needed "no help," according to Navweaps.com.
Loaded with taconite, a type of small iron ore pellet, The Fitzgerald was already sitting very low in the water. The pellets are porous, so a vessel laden with such cargo in the midst of a treacherous storm is ripe for sinking as the pellets will easily absorb water and rapidly increase in weight as they are exposed to water.
As The Fitzgerald battled the gale and high seas that day, water washed over it's main deck causing the vessel to become dangerously overloaded, which caused it to sink even lower (they left port with 26,000 tons of taconite). Once she was hit by that large wave, the vessel was swamped, broke into two pieces and sank like a rock approximately 17 miles away from Whitefish Point off Michigan's upper peninsula. Such weather conditions would not have given the crew a steady waterline to go by, rendering them unable to notice the slow sinking of the vessel.
The Fitzgerald's final resting place remains on the floor of Lake Superior, the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes, in two pieces. The stern rests upside-down, 170 feet from the bow section as shreds of her 200-foot collapsed center section litter the floor of the massive lake.
As Lightfoot immortalizes in his song, the church bell did chime, " 'til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald," at the Maritime Church in Detroit. Every year, on the anniversary of the tragedy, family members and friends gather at Whitefish Point to commiserate as they remember The Fitzgerald crew.
Special Thanks to Thomas FarnquistWeather at Paradise, Michigan
The Fitzgerald wreckage was located in position 46 59.91 N’, 85 06.6’ W in 530 feet of water in eastern Lake Superior just north of the International Boundary of Canadian waters. This position correlates with the last position The Anderson reported the doomed vessel to be at.
Gordon Lightfoot's Song, "The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald"
Was it human negligence or bad luck?
ReplyDeleteBecause this peacetime maritime disasters clearly have human negligence as a one of the sinking reasons. That's the reason for the maritime law is constantly updated and many of the maritime lawyers specializes in this field.