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SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a ship that sank suddenly, without a distress signal, in a storm on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. She sank in 530 feet of water at a position 46 degrees 59.9' N, 85 degrees 06.6' W, which is about 17 statute miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 crew on board were killed. This was the last major ship lost on the Great Lakes.
The ship Fitz was a 729-foot-long ore bulk carrier with a capacity for over 25,000 tons of ore. When she was built in 1958 at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Michigan, Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the Great Lakes, though ships are now 1,000 by 105-feet with twice the Fitz's cargo capacity. She originally had a coal-fired plant, but that was converted to an oil-fired plant during the 1971-72 winter layover. The ship had a large cargo hold that held the ore. The cargo was loaded and discharged through twenty-one water-tight hatches, each measuring 11'7" by 54' of 5/16" steel.
She was owned by the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and chartered to the Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Corporation. She was used to carry taconite from the mines near Duluth, Minnesota to iron works in Detroit, Toledo and other ports. Her name comes from the CEO of the Mutual Insurance Company and was christened by his wife.
The last voyage Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin on the afternoon of November 9, 1975 under Captain Ernest M. McSorley. She was enroute to Detroit, Michigan with a full cargo. Crossing Lake Superior at about 15 mph, she ran into a storm and reported winds in excess of 50 knots and waves approaching 16 feet. A second freighter, Arthur M. Anderson, was following the Fitz. Due to the storm, the Locks at Sault Sainte Marie were closed, and the freighters were headed north along the Canadian coast for shelter before crossing to Whitefish Bay to aproach the locks. On the afternoon of November 10, Fitz had reported a list and some top-side damage including the loss of radar, but did not indicate that it was serious. She slowed to allow Anderson to approach to between 10-15 miles behind so Anderson could give Fitzgerald radar data. The Fitzgerald sank suddenly. Her last communication was at about 19:10 that evening, responding "We are holding our own." to the question on their condition. Anderson could neither raise her nor see her on radar at 19:20. At 20:32, Anderson informed the U.S. Coast Guard of their concern for Fitzgerald. There was no distress signal received.
Search Once Anderson noted the loss of Fitzgerald, a search was launched for survivors. The initial search consisted of the Anderson, and a second freighter, William Clay Ford. A third freighter, the Canadian vessel Hilda Marjanne, had to turn back due to the weather. The Coast Guard launched three aircraft, but was unable to get any ships on scene quickly. The Coast Guard buoy tender, Woodbrush, which was on a six-hour standby in Duluth, was able to launch within two and a half hours, but was not on scene until 24 hours later. The search recovered debris including lifeboats and life rafts, but no survivors.
The wreck was first located by a U.S. Navy aircraft with an on-board magnetic anomaly detector equipment, normally used to detect submarines. The wreck was further surveyed using side scan sonar on November 14 - 16, 1975 by the Coast Guard. The sonar revealed two large objects lying close together on the lake floor. A second survey took place from November 22 through 25 by a private contractor, Seaward, Inc.
Underwater Survey In 1976, from May 20 through 28, an unmanned U.S. Navy submersible photographed the wreck. This submersible, called the CURV III system, had an underwater vehicle and an umbilical control and power cable that connected it to a surface support ship. It contained one 35 mm still camera and two black and white video cameras. It found Edmund Fitzgerald lying in two large pieces under 530 feet of water, far deeper than SCUBA divers can go. The bow section, approximately 276 feet long, lay upright in the mud. The stern section lay 170 feet away; the stern is inverted (face down) in the mud and a 50 degree angle from the bow section. The mid-section disintegrated with metal and taconite lying in heaps between the bow and stern sections.
Cause/Controversy When it first vanished it was widely believed Fitzgerald snapped in half on the surface due to storm action. This had happened before on the lakes. However, the fact the two pieces were found within a ship's length of each other led searchers to conclude that the ship broke when it hit the bottom. In previous surface breakups the sections separated and could be found miles from each other.
A Coast Guard investigation concluded that the most probable cause of the accident was the loss of buoyancy and stability that resulted from massive flooding of the cargo hold. The flooding was postulated to have taken place from ineffective hatch closures as the waves crashed along the deck. The flooding, which would have been gradually occurring throughout the final day, finally resulted in such a loss of buoyancy and stability that the vessel plunged to the bottom. The Coast Guard's report proved to be controversial. The most common alternate theory was that the Fitzgerald, navigating without radar due to storm damage, had received bottom damage from a shallow shoal that stuck out further from an island than was shown on the maps.
Since Fitzgerald has settled in mud up to its load marks and there's no way to inspect the bottom to see if it's been holed, the mystery surrounding the sinking will likely never be resolved.
Memory The ship's bell was recovered from the wreck and is now in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point near Paradise, Michigan. An anchor from the ship lost on an earlier trip was recovered from the Detroit River and is on display at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum in Detroit.
Mariner's Church in Detroit rang its bell 29 times the day after the sinking and continues to hold an annual memorial including ringing the church bell once for each life lost.
Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is a song about the tragedy. It proved to be a hit which made the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.
Although the last ship lost, and the largest, Fitzgerald is not alone on the bottom. All the lakes have a history of nautical disaster. There is no agreement on how many ships have been wrecked or sunk, but they number in the thousands. Between the years 1878 and 1898 there were 5,999 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. About a quarter of that number were listed as total losses. Some ships and crews simply vanished in storms. A number of marine preserves have been set up in divable areas that have high numbers of sunken ships.
Statistics - Length: 729 feet (222.2 m)
- Width: 75 feet (22.7 m)
- Draft: 39 feet (11.9 m)
- Deadweight tonnage: 8686 tons
- Rated speed: 14 knots
- Fuel: 72,000 gallons (273 m³) fuel oil
- Capacity: 26,600 tons (24 100 t)
- Built: River Rouge, Michigan, 1958
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