Theorists have sized upon the permanent lay-up of the Fitzgerald sister ship, the Arthur Homer, in 1980 as indicative of structural deficiency both vessels. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. That finding was quickly challenged by the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) and by many seasoned sailors. Marie, Michigan, during ferocious northwest winds and seas that washed as high as eight to 12 feet over the ships main deck. A 2012 sonar image shows theFitzgeraldto have deteriorated heavily since 1993. Many theorize the ship unknowingly struck the poorly marked 6 Fathom Shoal on the island's north side, but that has never been conclusively proven. Too soon to be coincidence. The last dive in 1993 indicated that zebra and cuaga muscles were begginning to grow on her metal superstructure and that rusting had gotten worse. Even before her demise, the Fitzgeraldwas a well known icon of the Great Lakes to those that lived along it.). This theory is the thought that the Fitzgerald hit the bottom near Caribou Island, ripping a hole in the ship. This would have left the crew no way to survive the Edmund Fitzgerald Wreck. Grew up learning about this. They said, however, they were inclined to accept that the Fitzgerald passed over the Six Fathom Shoal Area as reported by Cooper. Captain Ernest M. McSorley had loaded her with 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets, made of processed iron ore, heated and rolled into marble-size balls. It happened too fast. All rights reserved (About Us). An explanation that has been espoused several times by mariners is that the Fitzgerald suffered a stress fracture and broke apart on the surface from the effects of heavy seas twisting and flexing the hull. Cooper radioed theFitzgerald at 7:10 PMuknown to him that it would be the final communication with McSorley. He again voiced grave concern that the Fitzgerald was missing at 8:32 p.m. Search and rescue efforts started immediately after Coopers second call, but the nearest Coast Guard vessel that could sail in the huge seas was the Woodrush, stationed 300 miles away in Duluth, Minnesota. Contacts were strong enough to bring in the U.S. Navys CURV III controlled underwater recovery vehicle, operating from Woodrush. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the longest boat on the Great Lakes. The bad welds were confirmed by the Coast Guard, which approved repairs. Caribou (formerly Cariboo) is a census-designated place located in Plumas County, California, United States. The flooding of the cargo hold took place through ineffective hatch closures as boarding seas rolled along the spar deck.. Perhaps the most widely accepted of the several theories about the loss of the Fitzgerald is that the ship crossed Caribou Island's Six-Fathom Shoal, with water as shallow as 26 feet.. No. Marine and other experts who examined Coast Guard photos and videotape of the wreckage for the board of inquiry dismissed fracture as a cause of the wreck, based on the fact that no photo evidence shows brittle fracture separation, which is described as having straight or flat edges. This is 35 feet above the waterline.. After reviewing testimony that Fitzgerald had passed near shoals north of Caribou Island, the USCG Marine Board examined the relevant navigational charts. The Fitzgerald being the faster took the lead, with the distance between the vessels ranging from 10 to 15 miles. Again, though, I have to leave that decision up to you as to whether it would be hazarding your vessel or not. May god rest the souls of the 29 men who perished that fateful night, The iron ore freighter is only about 9 nautical miles from Pancake Bay off highway #17 Ontario Canada, it sits in Canadain waters. By its last voyage, the freighter had made about 748 round trips. Conflicting theories about the cause of the tragedy remain active today. For 17 years the Fitzgerald hauled taconite iron ore from the mines of Duluth, MN to Detroit and other Great Lakes ports setting . "He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water," Ley wrote. Would like to offer any help I can. All the windows have been blown out and destroyed. But the ship's owners were insurance men, not mariners, who reconfigured her for even more iron ore. With mounting apprehension, Captain Cooper called the Coast Guard once again, about 8:00 pm, and firmly expressed his concern for the welfare of the Fitzgerald. It was considered a private hunting preserve through the early 1900s. Of note, the NTSB report included a dissenting opinion that held to this theory. This theory was advanced by the Lake Carriers Association (LCA) after the U.S. Coast Guard report and seems to be the most popular among mariners and armchair wreck investigators. This theory was supported by a 1976 Canadian hydrographic survey, which disclosed that an unknown shoal ran a mile further east of Six Fathom Shoal than shown on the Canadian charts. 4:10 PM - Nov. 10th, 1975 - Eastern Lake Superior, southeast of Caribou Island. The Anderson turned out to be the primary vessel in the search, taking the lead. Aware of a building November storm entering the Great Lakes from the great plains, Captain McSorley and Captain Cooper agreed to take the northerly course across Lake Superior, where they would be protected by highlands on the Canadian shore. Numerous authors have written books on the tragedy. Cooper asked McSorley how they were doing. I wouldnt be surprised if a hatch cover came off, because I loaded right beside him in Superior on November 9 and the deck crew was still putting on hatch covers when they left the Superior Entry into Lake Superior, Captain Paquette says. By stretching more than 1 mile (1.6 km) north of the island Caribou north point, a dangerous reef is presently known as "Six Fathom Shoal." Others overlap in some ways. The Fitzgerald is about 16 miles ahead. In a similar vein, Paul Hainault, a retired Michigan Tech University professor, postulated a seiche caused the ship to scrape the bottom of Superior Shoal early that morning and the weakened hull eventually gave out. They therefore have the best genetics for surviving in this area. Couseau had theorized a surface break up, which sounds similar to the Merril several years later. Various cars scatter the bottom of the river covered in grass and zebra muscles. You can also follow me on Twitter at:https://twitter.com/jwbarker22, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald: According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee never gives up her dead, Great American Dreams: A Portrait of the Way We Are, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8LBkYjniTU, https://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/edmund-fitzgerald/the-fateful-journey/?fbclid=IwAR33M-6_G0X15ab73z4KkAIM3owr3GaVpRsHdaE5n_OIbSP3PzX7_FTMIGo, http://www.ontarioparks.com/parksblog/edmund-fitzgerald-40-years-later/. The first official report on the wreck sparked a flood of second-guessing. Reporting to the Anderson, the Fitzs Captain Ernest McSorley revealed the list and had activated two large ballast tank pumps to control it. A bit later, McSorley reported that his radars werent working and requested that the Anderson keep track of his route and give him navigational aid. The unedited video of the expedition did not show a complete body how it did show a clear shot of a leg along with the shoe of the unfortunate crewman. The popular misconception is that non of the crewmembers bodies were never discovered. In the early afternoon of November 10, the Fitzgerald had passed Michipicoten Island and was approaching Caribou Island. At some point it all becomes moot, except for the 29 families who remain, and do without bread from their missing bread-winners. By early the next morning, theAndersonandFitzgeraldencountered a powerful November gale with winds up to 50miles an hour. Eight minutes at the Fitz was all that he earned for his four-hour dive because of the necessary decompression. Officers and candidates in navigation classes and manufacturer schools receive up-to-the-minute training in using the latest equipment and in interpreting information that equipment provides to keep their ships out of harms way. Caribou is included in the pages of the myths of Inuit. Since no Coast Guard vessel capable of sailing in the conditions prevalent in eastern Lake Superior was available in the vicinity of the wreck, maintenance procedures were amended to ensure that cutters would be in a ready condition during the spring and fall periods of bad weather. Whatever the cause, the Fitzgerald took a starboard list as it passed Caribou. One man lived to tell about what happened unlike the Fitz. [5][6], A dangerous reef known as "Six Fathom Shoal" stretches more than 1 mile (1.6km) north of the north point of the island, and is rumored to be the one the SS Edmund Fitzgerald shoaled on prior to sinking. Captain Jesse Cooper, (J.C.) of the S.S. Arthur M. Anderson watches the Fitzgerald round Caribou Island and comments that the Fitzgerald is much closer to Six Fathom Shoal than he would want to be. She never should have sailed, and could have turned back when "The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound, as a wave broke over the railing." And then a song. Marie at 7:39 p.m., continued to try to raise radio contact with the big ship. The slow flooding supposedly went unnoticed by the captain and crew until it caused an imperceptible but fatal buoyancy loss and eventually sent the Fitzgerald plunging to the bottom. Winter 2023 NMU School of Art & Design Senior Exhibition Reception, Edmund Fitzgerald: Decades of Speculation, Fascination and Grieving. Morgan Clark, first mate of the Anderson, kept watching the Fitzgerald on the radar set to calculate her distance from some other vessels near Whitefish Point. The Coast Guard were at this time trying to locate a 16-foot boat that was overdue.. Captain Cooper observed the Fitzgerald passing very close to the dangerous Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island on the east side of the lake at around 1520 on November 10. That's what underwriters do. It shouldn't have. Add to Cart. Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRB) are now standard equipment on lakes vessels, allowing instantaneous identification of the area where a vessel founders. They issued a letter to the National Transportation Safety Board in September, 1977. He could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar set and could measure the distance between them. Again, Captain Cooper of the Anderson provides fuel for this theory, as he relates in Marshalls Shipwrecks of Lake Superior that slightly before 7 p.m. we took two of the largest seas of the trip. The Anderson changes course to avoid Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. Kids & Family, Search Events A half hour later I heard the news. In addition, Coast Guard cited reports of damage to the Fitzgerald's hatches that were planned for winter repair. There is a look out in Pancake Bay named after the Fitz. The following May, 1976, Woodrush was again on the scene to conduct a third sidescan sonar survey. Join us at Islands Restaurant in Fullerton on Malvern Avenue. And around 7:15 pm, the pip was lost again, but this time, did not reappear. Instead, the LCA theorized that the lost freighter had stumbled over the Six-Fathom Shoal at the north end of Caribou Island, sustaining damage that would prove to be fatal to the ship. The shoal is a hump of Keweenawan basaltic lava flows with ophitic interiors and amygdaloidal tops in an otherwise deep part of the lake, and though fishermen had known of its existence for generations it was only officially charted in 1929 by the United States Lake Survey. As the wise man once said, you can't outlaw stupidity nor legislate morality. The bodies have not been recovered. I was a student of Tom's in 85 7th grade science at Sault jr high. She would be travelling in tandem with the ore freighter Arthur M. Anderson under command of Captain Bernie Cooperto the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Several of the lakes are maintained by beavers and all are several feet above Lake Superior. But the Arthur M. Anderson survived and the Fitzgerald did not. Furthermore, she had few watertight compartments and was rumored to be overloaded beyondwhat her designers had meant for her to carry. He reduced speed to allow the Anderson to close the 17-mile gap between them. He could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar set and could measure the distance between them. "It was designed to haul a certain amount and they kept getting the Coast Guard to increase the load line." (TheEdmund Fitzgeraldseen in her final years riding far lower in the water than she should have ever been allowed to. The first holds that some kind of large, heavy object crashed into the ship while it was passing by Caribou Island in Lake Superior during the early hours of the terrible storm of 10 November, 1975. The studio was, yes, indeed, later torn down and replaced by a parking lot. When the skies of November turn gloomy.. Heavy snow begins to fall and the Fitzgerald is lost from. Beyond that, Captain Bernie Cooper of the Anderson commented in testimony that his radar showed the Fitz to be closer to the shoal than he wanted his ship to be. Captain Cooper contacted the other ships in the area by radio asking if anyone had seen or heard from the Fitzgerald. His written report states: At this time I became very concerned about the Fitzgerald couldnt see his lights when we should have. During that conversation, he stated that McSorley inadvertently left the microphone on when he said to someone in his pilothouse, Dont allow nobody on deck, also saying something about a vent that Woodard couldnt understand. YouTubes privacy policy is available here and YouTubes terms of service is available here. Phantom Fireworks is the leading retailer of consumer fireworks in the U.S. Phantom provides the widest range of consumer fireworks in all categories. The suits are also equipped with flashing lights and radio position beacons. [1][3] In addition, exposures of gently dipping, friable Jacobsville Sandstone, have been reported from Caribou Island. Right in the middle of this economic meltdown, and not just in the Great Lakes region, the Edmund Fitzgerald was lost. The Coast Guard cited reports of damage to the Fitzgerald's hatches that were planned for winter repair. Size & Medium. The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead Captain Dudley J. Paquette of the SS Wilfred Sykes sailed through the entire two-day storm, was part of the search effort and is a vocal adherent of the idea that the sunken ore carrier suffered stress damage at what he calls the hinge area where the greatest amount of flex is observed in a ships hull. The shoal in fact may have been mis-mapped as it appeared to jut out a mile further than official maps showed, and the Fitzgerald may have hit it in this one-mile stretch. Captain Cooper asked McSorley if he had his pumps going, and McSorley said, Yes, both of them.. He could clearly see the ship and the beacon on Caribou on his radar set and could measure the distance between them. The cause of the sinking is still a matter of much historic debate, both Ley and Sproule note. Our Specialties. Captain Cooper maintained that he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. You can listen to it here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8LBkYjniTU. The bell of the ship is now on display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum as a memorial to her lost crew. However, divers found no recent damage to the shoal after the wreck and the ship's exact course could only be estimated because the Fitzgerald radars were inoperable and the Anderson kept inexact course records during the journey.
