Edmund Fitzgerald

     The legend of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of the most mysterious and controversial shipwrecks that took place on the Great Lakes. The only sinking that has surpassed it is the Titanic. 
     The Edmund Fitzgerald’s final trip began November 9, 1975 at Superior, Wisconsin. Captain Ernest M. McSorley was the captain. 
     The ship was loaded with taconite pellets. They are made of processed iron ore, heated and rolled into marble-size balls. The ship departed Superior about 2:30 pm and was soon joined by another freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, which had departed Two Harbors, Minnesota under Captain Bernie Cooper. The two ships were in radio contact. The Fitzgerald being the faster took the lead, with the distance between the vessels ranging from 10 to 15 miles. 
     Both captains were aware that a building storm was entering the Great Lakes from the Great Plains. the Great Plains contain parts of 10 states: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming , Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. 

    The captains agreed to take a northerly course across Lake Superior where they would be protected by highlands on the Canadian shore. They would later make a turn to the southeast to eventually reach the shelter of Whitefish Point.
     Gale warnings had been issued at 7 pm on November 9 and weather conditions continued to deteriorate and it was upgraded to storm warnings early in the morning of November 10. Winds were gusting to 50 knots and seas 12 to 16 feet, but both captains had often sailed in similar conditions. In the early afternoon of November 10, the Fitzgerald had passed Michipicoten Island and was approaching Caribou Island. The Anderson was just approaching Michipicoten, about three miles off the West end. 
     Captain Cooper testified that he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island and he could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. By this time, snow and spray obscured the Fitzgerald from sight, but it was 17 miles ahead and visible on radar. 
     At 3:30 pm that afternoon, Captain McSorley radioed Captain Cooper and said he had a fence rail down, two vents lost or damaged, and the ship was listing. He requested Cooper to stay with him until he reached Whitefish and he was slowing down to allow the Arthur M. Anderson to catch up. When asked if he had his pumps running, McSorley replied that both of them were running.  
     As the afternoon wore on, the ships exchanged radio communications concerning navigation, but McSorley reported no alarms. At about 5:20 pm the crest of a wave smashed the Anderson’s starboard lifeboat and damaged it so that it was unusable. Winds were from the NW by W at a steady 58 knots with gusts to 70 knots and waves were 18 to 25 feet. 
     According to Captain Cooper, about 6:55 pm he and the men in the pilothouse felt a bump and the ship lurch. When they looked astern they saw a monstrous wave engulfing their entire vessel. The wave worked its way along the deck, crashing on the back of the pilothouse and drove the bow down into the lake. The Anderson recovered and they were immediately hit with an even bigger wave from astern. The pilot house crew testified that they watched those two waves head down the lake towards the Fitzgerald. Captain Cooper believed that it was those two waves that sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald.
     Morgan Clark, first mate of the Anderson, kept watching the Fitzgerald on the radar in order to calculate its distance from some other vessels near Whitefish Point, but he kept losing sight of the Fitzgerald on the radar because of sea return. Sea return means the waves were so high they interfered with the radar reflection. Clark spoke to the Fitzgerald for the last about at about 7:10 pm. Their conversation was about navigation and when asked about their problems, the Fitzgerald said they were holding their own. 
     At about 7:15 pm the radar signal was lost and this time they did not reappear. Radio calls to the Fitzgerald at about 7:22 pm were unanswered. Captain Cooper contacted the other ships in the area by radio asking if anyone had seen or heard from the Fitzgerald. 
     The weather had cleared dramatically. According to his written reported Captain Cooper became very concerned. With the clearing weather he should have been able to see the Fitzgerald’s lights, but couldn’t. He was sure something had happened to the Fitzgerald so he notified the Coast Guard which at time was trying to locate a 16-foot boat that was overdue. 
     Captain Cooper called the Coast Guard once again at about 8:00 pm, and firmly expressed his concern for the welfare of the Fitzgerald. The Coast Guard then initiated its search for the missing ship. By that time the Anderson had reached the safety of Whitefish Bay to the relief of all aboard. 
     The Coast Guard called Captain Cooper back at 9:00 pm and asked if there was any possibility he could come about and go back and do the searching. Cooper replied that he could, but he would not be making more than two or three miles an hour if he went back. The Coast Guard advised him that it was his call if he would be hazarding his vessel, but at that time he was probably the only vessel that could get to the scene at that time. 
     The Coast Guard thought the Fitzgerald may have split apart at the seams like had happened to another ship a few years previouly. In the end, Captain Cooper agreed go back and take a look even though, as he put it, “I’m afraid I’m going to take a hell of a beating out there.” 
     He then asked the Coast Guard if they realized what the conditions were out there, but they did not reply. So, he tried again. The Coast Guard replied that they did and, again, left it up to Captain Cooper. Captain Cooper agreed and he turned out to be the primary vessel in the search. 
     With his ship taking a beating and rolling badly, the crew discovered the Fitzgerald’s two lifeboats and other debris but no sign of survivors. Only one other vessel, the William Clay Ford, was able to leave the safety of Whitefish Bay to join in the search at the time. 

     The Coast Guard launched a fixed-wing aircraft at 10 pm and dispatched two cutters. One arrived at 12:45 pm on November 11, and the other arrived on November 14, having journeyed all the way from Duluth, Minnesota. After an extensive and thorough search by the Coast Guard, on November 14, a U.S. Navy plane equipped with a magnetic anomaly detector located a strong contact 17 miles north-northwest of Whitefish Point. 
     During the next three days, a Coast Guard cutter using a sidescan sonar located two large pieces of wreckage in the same area. Another sonar survey was conducted November 22-25. 
     The following May, in 1976, a Coast Guard cutter was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. Contacts were strong enough to bring in the U.S. Navy’s controlled underwater recovery vehicle which took 43,000 feet of video tape and 900 photographs of the wreck. 
     On May 20, 1976, the words “Edmund Fitzgerald” were clearly seen on the stern, upside down, 535 feet below the surface. While the Coast Guard said the cause of the sinking could not be conclusively determined, it maintained that the most probable cause was the loss of buoyancy and stability resulting from massive flooding of the cargo hold as a result of ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck. 
     However, the Coast Guard has been known to take the easy way out and assign causes based on convenience. The Lake Carrier’s Association vigorously disagreed with the Coast Guard’s suggestion that the lack of attention to properly closing the hatch covers by the crew was responsible for the disaster. They issued a letter to the National Transportation Safety Board in 1977 stating they were inclined to accept that Fitzgerald passed over the Six Fathom Shoal Area as reported by Captain Cooper who said that he always believed McSorley knew something serious had happened to Fitzgerald as the ship passed over Caribou Shoal and from that point on, McSorley knew he was sinking. 
     Even today there is disagreement over the cause of the sinking. Conflicting theories about the cause of the tragedy remain active today. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society made three dives on the wreck and it’s their belief that the ship “submarined” bow first into an enormous wave. That conclusion is based on the fact that the damage to the forward part of the ship is indicative of a powerful, quick force to the superstructure. But what caused the ship to take on water, enough to lose buoyancy and dive to the bottom so quickly, without a single call for help cannot be determined. Twenty-nine men were lost. 

Rare radio chatter between the Arthur M. Anderson and the Coast Guard November 10th, 1975. The last time anyone ever heard from the Edmund Fitzgerald.