What Changed Because of the Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

[I<3oil]

Fair enough. How about this. The average depth of lake Superior is 483 feet. The Edmund Fitzgerald was as you say, 728 feet.

Okay.

 

[Kira]

I was told the depth at the eastern end of the lake was around 120 feet and that the wave action was "30 feet".
A superimposed pair of crests would be 60 feet. On the way into superimposed troughs, a ship could drop a schematic 120 feet.
Momentum of "26,000 tons" of pelletized ore plus the weight of the vessel minus whatever buoyancy the old girl had left in her meant she likely slammed into the bottom.

So close to shore and it still took 3 days to find her.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I stumbled on this guy's channel where he outlines the stories behind various events and he has a video on this one.

I enjoy that channel!

 

[64bawagon]

My understanding was that the hatches were not secured well and they took on water because of the waves and winds. The process of locking the dogs on the hatches was labor intensive and it was common practice to not run them down all the way.

 

[PimTac]

Strange things happen to ships like that when they are between large waves. Loaded with iron ore exacerbated the issue. Over the years of hauling iron ore that ship flexed its hull without failure until that day when it was too much.

 

[jstert]

i grew up on the northern atlantic coast, spent many happy summer days on the water. got caught offshore in a few squalls, including snow in june while fishing off pei. i never truly appreciated freshwater, ponds were all that i knew, until i lived in toronto for a couple of years. on weekends i often drove up to lakes simcoe and huron to get out of the city (2004 toyota corolla with mobil 1 10w30 annual oci and wm gy viva tires-this is bitog after all). the winter cold and storms from lake huron are truly impressive, i learned that the upper great lakes are inland oceans and not to be taken lightly.

 

[odie]

The song by Gordon Lightfoot was one of my dad's favorites. I looked into that sinking quite a bit several years ago.

B side of the 45 worth a listen .

 

[Snagglefoot]

I was told the depth at the eastern end of the lake was around 120 feet and that the wave action was "30 feet".
A superimposed pair of crests would be 60 feet. On the way into superimposed troughs, a ship could drop a schematic 120 feet.
Momentum of "26,000 tons" of pelletized ore plus the weight of the vessel minus whatever buoyancy the old girl had left in her meant she likely slammed into the bottom.

So close to shore and it still took 3 days to find her.

Agree totally. The bow was smashed. Even at 45 degrees the stern would have been up in the air above the water, resulting in somewhat of a Titanic situation where the back half of the ship broke off the front half.

 

[I<3oil]

I was told the depth at the eastern end of the lake was around 120 feet and that the wave action was "30 feet".
A superimposed pair of crests would be 60 feet. On the way into superimposed troughs, a ship could drop a schematic 120 feet.
Momentum of "26,000 tons" of pelletized ore plus the weight of the vessel minus whatever buoyancy the old girl had left in her meant she likely slammed into the bottom.

So close to shore and it still took 3 days to find her.

She sank in 530' of water.

 

[cbear]

GPS wasn't fully deployed in 1990. I was in charge of maintaining the navigational receivers on a Navy destroyer from 1995-1997. There were still long outages because the satellite constellation wasn't complete yet. We would still use the older NNSS satellite system as well as Loran-C for backup.

 

[Warlord]

As I recall the bow had been driven 30 something feet into the bottom so it would have to be physically pushed down. Not simply coming to rest on bottom. That’s what makes me suspect the ship took on too much water and was overwhelmed, diving like a submarine right into the bottom before snapping in half. I think the official ruling was sudden loss of buoyancy.

 

[alarmguy]

The song by Gordon Lightfoot was one of my dad's favorites. I looked into that sinking quite a bit several years ago.

Ok, now Im feeling older, your dad?
One of my favorites too, from the first day the song was released

 

[64bawagon]

I still recall waking up every morning the next fall to my alarm clock radio blasting this song on CKLW out of Windsor. It was literally just like Groundhog day. 8th grade forever implanted in my brain.

 

[JHZR2]

While the Jones act does have something to do with fleet age, the biggest piece is that the Great Lakes are not salty, and are a significantly less corrosive environment to a ship. When salties come in, they typically look like rust buckets compared to many of the old lakers...

There are many theories as to what happened to the Fitz. The only people who know can't tell us.

SS Badger is still a part of US 10 to this day because of that. Took a ride on her recently. Coal fired and everything.

 

[JHZR2]

Ok, now Im feeling older, your dad?
One of my favorites too, from the first day the song was released

One of my favorites as well and I’m an 80’s baby. Downeaster Alexa is another seafaring type song that I really like.

 

[MNgopher]

SS Badger is still a part of US 10 to this day because of that. Took a ride on her recently. Coal fired and everything.

Was supposed to take that as part of a trip this summer, but unfortunately it was canceled due to members of the crew coming down with COVID.

Decided we did not want to loop all the way around Lake Michigan, and returned the way we came through the UP. (Which by the way, the UP was an excellent vacation - we took in the Lake Superior Shore from the tip of Minnesota over to Sault St Marie and had a great time, with an excursion down to the Mackinaw Bridge...)

 

[alarmguy]

One of my favorites as well and I’m an 80’s baby. Downeaster Alexa is another seafaring type song that I really like.

Yes and Billy Joel lived in the same county on Long Island as I did for most my life before we moved south a number of years ago.
Downeaster Alexa is an awesome song …

 

[odie]

 

[alarmguy]

Yup, I’ll never forget that one either, summertime in my teens, beach days and nights…… if they were such a thing of reincarnation when that time comes take me back there…
I still have a picture in my mind of my friends FM radio that we would listen to it on …