The Gales Of November, Remembered

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Immortalized in a ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, the legend of the wreck lives on.

On November 10, 1975, the 725-foot-long Great Lakes freighter, the biggest freighter on the lakes when she was built in 1958, suddenly sank in a storm in Lake Superior, taking all 29 crew members with her.

The ship rests on the lake bottom 530 feet down from the surface, with the bow section upright and the stern upside down.

The Arthur M. Andersen, the ship that was last to see and communicate with the Fitzgerald, is now in long-term layup in Toledo, Ohio, and may be retired from service soon, ending a long career and an operating connection to that fateful day 50 years ago.

A documentary showing the Edmund Fitzgerald in its condition as of the last expedition in 1994 gives a lot of interesting footage of the wreck:

 

There may never be another expedition to the wreck, as it is considered a grave and requires a permit to be visited.  That permit is not being issued by the Canadian government since the 1990s expedition. The presence of at least one visible body of a crew member found during the 94 expedition is one of the factors for the denial of permits for the wreck. 

The deep and cold fresh waters of Lake Superior preserves the wreck, and as the song says, Superior does not give up her dead, even 50 years after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Edmund Fitzgerald, 40 Years Gone.

Thanks to Gordon Lightfoot, the Edmund Fitzgerald is the most well-known Great Lakes freighter, and the most famous wreck on the lakes.

40 years ago, she sank in a gale, taking all 29 of her crew with her. The exact cause of her sinking is still not known, though a few theories provide likely answers, with either water coming in through the cargo hatches, or grounding the bottom on a shoal or a combination of the two being the most likely reason for the sinking.

The wreck lies on the bottom of Lake Superior in two main pieces,

In 500 feet of water, she's a greater than Mt. Everest level dive, and less than a handful of divers have visited the wreck using SCUBA gear. Now, with the Canadian government banning diving on the wreck, it's unlikely that more will visit the famous site.

Here's to the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew, 40 years gone.

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald

35 years ago today, the mighty Fitz lost to the gales of November and sank 500 feet down to the bottom of Lake Superior, taking all of her crew with her.

Immortalized in the Gordon Lightfoot song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the sinking of the 728-foot long freighter continues to fascinate the public with the sudden loss of the great ship. The current and most probable theory advanced for the sinking of the ship was that she struck a shoal that was incorrectly marked on one of the charts and took on water in the storm and then sank suddenly, with the ship breaking in two as it headed for the bottom.

To commemorate the sinking, The Detroit Free Press has released many previously unpublished photos of the Fitz, including many of the wreck on the bottom taken by submarine during an expedition to the wreck in 1994.

Only two people are known to have dived the Fitzgerald on open circuit SCUBA equipment - Terrence Tysall and Mike Zee in 1995 - at 530 feet, it is an Everest-class dive. To put it in perspective, for a bottom time on the wreck of six minutes, they had three hours and fifteen minutes of decompression in the cold waters of Lake Superior.

So today take a moment and remember the mighty ship the Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew of 29 lost in Lake Superior, 35 years after she's gone.