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35 Years Ago
- Thread starter Basil
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rick_ingram
Yoda
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Got these e-mails from one of my friends this week:
******************
Weird week....yesterday was the 35 anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (google it).....a high school buddy of mine sailed on that boat for years. I was in California in 1975 when I heard on the evening news that it was missing....took days for me to find out he wasn't on it for the last voyage...strange. Strange how the accounts differ about what happened (to protect the owners from lawsuits it seems).
********************
My buddy was friends with the first mate (Morgan Clarke, kinda a mentor) on the Arthur M Anderson...the boat following the Fitz.... and Clarke was the one receiving the radio transmissions that afternoon. Clarke believed (like many other sailors from where I lived) that Capt McSorley ran the Fitz over the 6 fathom shoal at Caribou Island....tore the bottom open, the 2 gigantic pumps that emptied bilge water were not keeping up and the boat was sinking. When McSorley replied that the "rails were down" that is radio speak for the hull flexing up (when going over the rocks) in the middle and snapping the rails. The boat lost its bouyency and when the 2 giant waves rolled over it from the stern to the bow....it just went in and didn't come back out.....instant. Those 2 waves rolled over the Anderson about 10 minutes before they would have gotten to the Fitz. Clarke said the Anderson went in but came back out...the Fitz didn't. It was 750 feet long and the water was only about 530 feet deep.....the stern sticking out of the water just broke off.
Most everybody is dead know...but my buddy still believes that is what happened.
************************
Growing up in Duluth where I did....the boats were always close to everyone. Getting on for a season was a plum job. You had to know someone. This was in the 60s remember and if you were in the merchant marine, you were not subject to the draft....a BIG deal when I was growing up. My buddy got on through Morgan.
I remember sitting in a bar drinkin' longnecks and peelin' labels for a long time talking about the 'boats' and that subject with him. Morgan always said that the Fitz went over the shoal about 3 in the afternoon of the 10th. Morgan watched it happen on the radar of the Anderson. The radar on the Fitz was out. He believes that McSorley knew he was sinking from that point on. He reported the list and boths pumps were "going". Those bilge pumps (used to pump the hold dry because they came 'up lakes' empty but full of water) could get the water out from full in about 2 hours. Any water coming in from loose hatches could easily have been handled by those pumps. Had to be a big hole in the bottom for the pumps not to be able to overcome it. The last message from McSorley, received by Morgan on the Anderson, was at about 7:10pm...."we're holding our own".....meaning in lake speak that the pumps were not keeping up but they would make it to Whitefish bay...they did not.
Nobody wanted to blame the Captn.....and the Canadian charts were off...6 fathom shoal was actually a 1/2 mile further from Caribou Island than what showed on the chart. Right where the Fitz went across. People from Duluth have dived on those shoals (water is only 36 ft deep) and have reported lots of paint on the bottom rocks....from the Fitz? who knows. Plus there is the 'missing' 200ft center section on the bottom.....where is that? The bow section and the stern section have been photographed....where is the rest of the thing? Everyone admits that the testimony was in 'damage control' mode.
Interesting mystery.
************************
******************
Weird week....yesterday was the 35 anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (google it).....a high school buddy of mine sailed on that boat for years. I was in California in 1975 when I heard on the evening news that it was missing....took days for me to find out he wasn't on it for the last voyage...strange. Strange how the accounts differ about what happened (to protect the owners from lawsuits it seems).
********************
My buddy was friends with the first mate (Morgan Clarke, kinda a mentor) on the Arthur M Anderson...the boat following the Fitz.... and Clarke was the one receiving the radio transmissions that afternoon. Clarke believed (like many other sailors from where I lived) that Capt McSorley ran the Fitz over the 6 fathom shoal at Caribou Island....tore the bottom open, the 2 gigantic pumps that emptied bilge water were not keeping up and the boat was sinking. When McSorley replied that the "rails were down" that is radio speak for the hull flexing up (when going over the rocks) in the middle and snapping the rails. The boat lost its bouyency and when the 2 giant waves rolled over it from the stern to the bow....it just went in and didn't come back out.....instant. Those 2 waves rolled over the Anderson about 10 minutes before they would have gotten to the Fitz. Clarke said the Anderson went in but came back out...the Fitz didn't. It was 750 feet long and the water was only about 530 feet deep.....the stern sticking out of the water just broke off.
Most everybody is dead know...but my buddy still believes that is what happened.
************************
Growing up in Duluth where I did....the boats were always close to everyone. Getting on for a season was a plum job. You had to know someone. This was in the 60s remember and if you were in the merchant marine, you were not subject to the draft....a BIG deal when I was growing up. My buddy got on through Morgan.
I remember sitting in a bar drinkin' longnecks and peelin' labels for a long time talking about the 'boats' and that subject with him. Morgan always said that the Fitz went over the shoal about 3 in the afternoon of the 10th. Morgan watched it happen on the radar of the Anderson. The radar on the Fitz was out. He believes that McSorley knew he was sinking from that point on. He reported the list and boths pumps were "going". Those bilge pumps (used to pump the hold dry because they came 'up lakes' empty but full of water) could get the water out from full in about 2 hours. Any water coming in from loose hatches could easily have been handled by those pumps. Had to be a big hole in the bottom for the pumps not to be able to overcome it. The last message from McSorley, received by Morgan on the Anderson, was at about 7:10pm...."we're holding our own".....meaning in lake speak that the pumps were not keeping up but they would make it to Whitefish bay...they did not.
Nobody wanted to blame the Captn.....and the Canadian charts were off...6 fathom shoal was actually a 1/2 mile further from Caribou Island than what showed on the chart. Right where the Fitz went across. People from Duluth have dived on those shoals (water is only 36 ft deep) and have reported lots of paint on the bottom rocks....from the Fitz? who knows. Plus there is the 'missing' 200ft center section on the bottom.....where is that? The bow section and the stern section have been photographed....where is the rest of the thing? Everyone admits that the testimony was in 'damage control' mode.
Interesting mystery.
************************
