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The Real Story of SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the Lost American Lake Freighter Turned Folk Icon

Countless thousands of shipwrecks dot the Earth's oceans, rivers, and seas. But only a handful are remembered years after these vessels and their crew slipped beneath the waves. Even less become cultural icons.
SS Edmund Fitzgerald 18 photos
Photo: Great Lakes Shipwrecks Museum
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The Germans have the Wilhelm Gustloff, and the British have RMS Titanic. But while those started their lives as ocean liners, the most iconic American equivalent was just a humble lake freighter. It may have had a modest job at face value, but the SS Edmund Fitgerald was no ordinary freshwater bulk freighter.

It was a colossal titan of America's Great Lakes shipping and held just as much esteem in its field as the Titanic. The fateful day it sank to the bottom of Lake Superior in a hellacious storm, it earned a folk legend status among American and Canadian sailors unlike any lost vessel in the history of North America.

Of all North America's Great Lakes, Lake Superior, the one most often sailed by SS Edmund Fitzgerald, stands above all others. Estimates peg that it could hold the water mass from all four other Great Lakes with room to spare, and it's the largest freshwater lake by surface area in the world. At 350 miles wide and 160 miles long with depths well north of 1,000 feet, this proverbial ocean in the middle of a continent between two global superpowers is no place for pleasure yachts or jet skis.

Lake Superior's waters can and have swallowed lesser ships whole without so much as a belch from its depths. As many as 6,000 ships are known to have been lost, mostly cargo transport ships delivering supplies between urban centers along the lake's shores in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and the Canadian province of Ontario. By lake bulk freighter standards, or by any maritime vessel really, SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a behemoth.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald
Photo: Great Lakes Shipwrecks Museum
The ship had dimensions of 729 feet (222 m) long, a 75-foot (23 m) beam, and a deadweight of 26,000 long tons (29,120 short tons, 13 632 tons w/o cargo). The only obstacle keeping the mighty Edmund Fitzgerald from being as large as Titanic was federal regulations keeping it within a foot of the absolute limit. We can only imagine American and Canadian regulators breaking out rulers to ensure the hulking freighter kept within the legal margins.

Ordered in February 1957 and launched on June 7th, 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was named in honor of the President and CEO of the group who owned it, the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. A Milwaukee, Wisconson based financial service provider that, in the middle of the 20th century, owned stakes in oil and iron ore shipping across the Great Lakes.

The ship was operated under license by the Columbia Transportation Division of the Oglebay Norton Company, based in Cleveland, Ohio. Yet another Major American city close to the Great Lakes. Powering this historical leviathan of freshwater freight transport was a single coal-fired Westinghouse Electric steam turbine engine. It jetted 7,500 shaft horsepower (5,600 kW) at full throttle. In the winter of 1971 and 72, operators abandoned coal in favor of fuel oil.

Tanks were installed to carry up to 72,000 U.S. gallons (270,000 liters; 60,000 imp gal) of maritime fuel oil to power the ship's single gigantic 19.5-foot propeller up to a speed of 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) With room for a crew of up to 29. Countless rotations served aboard the freighter from its maiden commercial voyage in June 1958 until its loss in November 1975. Since then, the ship's become a mythical figure in North American culture, especially in the regions where great sailors are treated like folk heroes.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald
Photo: Great Lakes Shipwrecks Museum
A point made especially poignant by Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 hit song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The lyrics of which lend clues to its grizzly fate. "The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead when the skies of November turn gloomy. With a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty. That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early."

Indeed, there were wicked storms brewing when Edmund Fitgerald left port in Superior, Wisconsin, on November 9th, 1975. It carried a load of taconite ore pellets bound for a steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit, Michigan. At the command for the journey was a 63-year-old lake vessel veteran named Ernest M. McSorley. The Toledo, Ohio native was known in his day as an excellent stormy weather Lake Captain. His skills were undoubtedly pushed to the limit on Edmund Fitzgerald's final day.

At 1 a.m. the next morning, the ship encountered a monstrous winter storm a full six weeks before the start of winter. A common occurrence in the frigid region of Southern Canada and the Northern U.S., where Lake Superior sits. Followed in tandem by its sister ship the SS Arthur M Anderson, it became increasingly difficult for the two ships to stay in convoy in the winds of 35 to 50 knots (65–93 km/h; 40–58 mph), and the ten-feet-plus high waves that resulted.

By that afternoon, winds were at a steady 50 knots (93 km/h; 58 mph), and seemingly endless punishing waves were battering the ship's crew. As day turned into evening, the Arthur M Anderson lost visual and radar contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald. Based on reports from Captain McSorley, it's thought the unforgiving waves damaged his ship's radar. Around 7:10 p.m. that evening, the captain radioed the other half of this two-ship convoy one final time, saying simply, "We are holding our own."

SS Edmund Fitzgerald
Photo: Great Lakes Shipwrecks Museum
Attempts to alert the U.S. Coast Guard were unsuccessful until nearly 8 p.m. Though American and Canadian authorities recovered scraps of debris and mangled lifeboats, no human remains were found. Implying the 29-person crew went down with the ship, including one man as young as 20. A U.S. Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion found the wreck on November 14th, 1975, approximately 15 miles (13 nmi; 24 km) west of Deadman's Cove, Ontario, 530 feet (160 m) beneath the waves.

The day after the incident, church bells were rung 29 times, one for each lost soul, at the Mariners' Cathedral in Detroit. Both the owners and operators of the ship began settling lawsuits worth millions with the victims' families little than a week later. Many manned and unmanned expeditionary vessels surveyed the wreck between 1975 and 1995 before federal regulations required researchers to acquire a license before making the voyage. In 2022, the wreck is now a de-facto memorial sight. Feel free to check out a remarkable documentary on the intricate details of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald from the Maritime Horrors YouTube Channel down below if you want to learn more.

Stay tuned for another week of Sea Month here on autoevolution.




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