Current Events > Today is the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald final voyage

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just random history trivia. What's weird is that apparently there's gale warnings on the great lakes. Can anyone verify that?

Yeah the Great Lakes are fucking scary

Obligatory Gordon Lightfoot post.

https://youtu.be/FuzTkGyxkYI?si=3T7bXZNrKNUuSJ1f

DarthDemented posted...

Can anyone verify that?

Yes.

https://www.weather.gov/apx/galewatch

Beany posted...

Yes.

https://www.weather.gov/apx/galewatch

Historic gales. The other day 20 foot waves were forecast for all the Great Lakes and that doesnt happen.https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2e614d3e.jpg

I know they found the ship but did they ever recover any bodies? I dont think i ever heard of a ship sinking so fast before, almost like something literally grabbed it and pulled it under.

I remember in elementary school actually doing a couple days (maybe just one, its been a very long time) in history about it.

Zergrush80 posted...

I know they found the ship but did they ever recover any bodies? I dont think i ever heard of a ship sinking so fast before, almost like something literally grabbed it and pulled it under.

They found the bodies, but left them where they are. The water is so cold that deep in Lake Superior, that they haven't decayed. In 1995 they went down and recovered the ships bell and replaced it with a replica with the crew names engraved on it as a sort of headstone. They apparently also left a beer on the ships bridge.

a-c-a-b posted...

Obligatory Gordon Lightfoot post.

https://youtu.be/FuzTkGyxkYI?si=3T7bXZNrKNUuSJ1f

The band Home Free did a really good cover and music video.

Beany posted...

Yes.

https://www.weather.gov/apx/galewatch

Damn. That's crazy. Exact same weather 50 years later.

Zergrush80 posted...

I dont think i ever heard of a ship sinking so fast before, almost like something literally grabbed it and pulled it under.

We don't really know how quickly the ship sank, since no one who witnessed the sinking survived

The fastest ship sinking I'm aware of offhand, not counting cases where a ship blew up in combat and sank in seconds, was the RMS Empress of Ireland, which sank in 14 minutes after another ship collided with her in 1914.

UnholyMudcrab posted...

We don't really know how quickly the ship sank, since no one who witnessed the sinking survived

The fastest ship sinking I'm aware of offhand, not counting cases where a ship blew up in combat and sank in seconds, was the RMS Empress of Ireland, which sank in 14 minutes after another ship collided with her in 1914.

The Edmond Fitzgerald sank quickly enough no distress signal was given before vanishing and no one managed to reach a lifeboat. Last message was from the Captain McSorley radioing the Arthur M. Anderson. It was... We are holding our own.

That was around 7:10am. Radio contact was lost around 7:15pm. And efforts afterward couldn't find the ship.

Did some searching online. Being overloaded, low in the water, and having several issues, the ship would have sank very quickly when water started coming in after it likely snapped in two at/near the surface. Definitely faster than the 14 minutes it took for the Empress of Ireland to sink. Trying to find a good number, but many simulations have the bow spiking into the Lake Bottom. It was quick, saying minutes at most is probably an overestimate. Bow itself may have been underwater in seconds.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DgE3g1V129M

Vokrent posted...

Yeah the Great Lakes are fucking scary

*insert discussion about how the waters of Lake Superior are so cold and deprived of oxygen at its depths that the bodies of those sailors the waters dragged below are still there*

oh apparently OP already did that lol

LeTigre posted...

*insert discussion about how the waters of Lake Superior are so cold and deprived of oxygen at its depths that the bodies of those sailors the waters dragged below are still there*

Its wild that Superior is so big and gets so cold that in the middle of the summer the air temperature over the middle of the lake is in the 40s.

DarthDemented posted...

They found the bodies, but left them where they are. The water is so cold that deep in Lake Superior, that they haven't decayed

That's something I didn't know

Charged151 posted...

Did some searching online. Being overloaded, low in the water, and having several issues, the ship would have sank very quickly when water started coming in after it likely snapped in two at/near the surface. Definitely faster than the 14 minutes it took for the Empress of Ireland to sink. Trying to find a good number, but many simulations have the bow spiking into the Lake Bottom. It was quick, saying minutes at most is probably an overestimate. Bow itself may have been underwater in seconds.

My head theory says that after cresting a tall wave the bow plunged into an unusually deep through, whereupon the ship's momentum combined with its steep angle negated the bow''s buoyancy and drove it to the bottom. The sudden stop then compressed the keel, catastrophically shattering it at its weakest point. The holds in the stern then flooded almost instantly and took it under the waves in a matter of seconds.

First time hearing about this, very intrigued.
I wonder if it's more of a regional knowledge kind of thing?

Hexenherz posted...

First time hearing about this, very intrigued.
I wonder if it's more of a regional knowledge kind of thing?

I learned about it through the song when I was like 12 and grew up a fair distance away from the Great Lakes. I don't think it's a "common knowledge" kind of thing but the song was popular enough and there are enough disaster-oriented TV shows out there that many people who weren't around when it happened are familiar with it.

a-c-a-b posted...

Obligatory Gordon Lightfoot post.

https://youtu.be/FuzTkGyxkYI?si=3T7bXZNrKNUuSJ1f

I first heard the punch brothers version of this

Thompson posted...

My head theory says that after cresting a tall wave the bow plunged into an unusually deep through, whereupon the ship's momentum combined with its steep angle negated the bow''s buoyancy and drove it to the bottom. The sudden stop then compressed the keel, catastrophically shattering it at its weakest point. The holds in the stern then flooded almost instantly and took it under the waves in a matter of seconds.

It seems like one of the more popular theories.

El_Marsh posted...

I learned about it through the song when I was like 12 and grew up a fair distance away from the Great Lakes. I don't think it's a "common knowledge" kind of thing but the song was popular enough and there are enough disaster-oriented TV shows out there that many people who weren't around when it happened are familiar with it.

Are you talking about the Gordon Lightfoot song that was posted here?

How did you hear about that song? I've never heard it before.

TBF I only know one Gordon song, Sundown, which I do love a lot so I need to listen to this one.

I grew up on the west Coast and have zero recollection of this event though :/ I remember Titanic getting a ton of attention and publicity and to this day I still think it's weird.

Hexenherz posted...

How did you hear about that song? I've never heard it before.

It used to get infrequent radio play in a time before the definition of "classic rock" was changed to be 75% Van Halen.

Hexenherz posted...

Are you talking about the Gordon Lightfoot song that was posted here?

How did you hear about that song? I've never heard it before.

TBF I only know one Gordon song, Sundown, which I do love a lot so I need to listen to this one.

I grew up on the west Coast and have zero recollection of this event though :/ I remember Titanic getting a ton of attention and publicity and to this day I still think it's weird.

I learned about it in Boy Scouts. One of the adult leaders had the song on a cassette and we listened to it on the way to a camping trip. He mentioned that it was a true story and the intrigue grew from there.

Hexenherz posted...

Are you talking about the Gordon Lightfoot song that was posted here?

How did you hear about that song? I've never heard it before.

TBF I only know one Gordon song, Sundown, which I do love a lot so I need to listen to this one.

I grew up on the west Coast and have zero recollection of this event though :/ I remember Titanic getting a ton of attention and publicity and to this day I still think it's weird.

I grew up in Michigan I learn about the Edmund Fitzgerald. Also enjoyed anytime I saw freighters and visited the Soo Locks. Moved to Vancouver, WA and leaned about the Peter Iredale.

I am flagrantly stealing this meme from the meme topic but I'm at least attributing it properly:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/ba8c8a63.jpg

Hexenherz posted...

First time hearing about this, very intrigued.
I wonder if it's more of a regional knowledge kind of thing?

When I first heard the song, I thought it was just a fictional story that made a good song. Wasn't until I I dug into it on Wikipedia that I found out it was a real event. Meteorologist Chris Vickers on Facebook has been posting a running timeline of that day, if interested. His news station has posted a documentary to their YouTube.
https://youtu.be/u0HdCf05eFY?si=FAUpAxY1u7j4Pkyi

Vokrent posted...

Yeah the Great Lakes are fucking scary

Lake Superior is 1,332 feet deep. Like, what the hell.

I imagine the cargo holds buckled and were inundated on top of all the problems the ship was already facing. Low in the water, listing, questionable hull integrity, rogue waves, and reefs may have all contributed on top of that.

The net result is a quick sinking.

The big lake they call Gitchee Gumee wants to know your location.

I took my wife up to Duluth in the middle of the winter, and she had never seen Lake Superior before.

it was frozen over as far as you could see and not only was she INCREDIBLY freaked out by the footsteps in the snow cover that seemed like they just vanished into the horizon, but when the ice started its microcracking in the morning she was convinced it was gunshots.

Starks posted...

I imagine the cargo holds buckled and were inundated on top of all the problems the ship was already facing. Low in the water, listing, questionable hull integrity, rogue waves, and reefs may have all contributed on top of that.

The net result is a quick sinking.

I've been seeing a theory floating around that the bow and stern were caught between two steep waves and nothing between the middle. The weight of the ore on top of the hull integrity made it give way and buckle. Sounds a bit cartoonish to me, but I'm not an expert on these things.

DarthDemented posted...

The band Home Free did a really good cover and music video.

pinky0926 posted...

I first heard the punch brothers version of this

Never heard either of those but I'm sure the song has been covered a bunch.

They played the Headstones version on the radio while I was at work today.

https://youtu.be/Y8LBkYjniTU?si=rC45k-4yzNDM5tdR

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

I love the line "twas the witch of November come stealing"

The good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early

a-c-a-b posted...

Never heard either of those but I'm sure the song has been covered a bunch.

They played the Headstones version on the radio while I was at work today.

https://youtu.be/Y8LBkYjniTU?si=rC45k-4yzNDM5tdR

Never heard of the Headstones. Who are... Ed (Flashpoint)?? Hugh Dillon, cool. An actor and a rocker.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Dillon

At supper time, the old cook came on deck and said "fellas it's too rough to feed ya", at 7 pm the main hatchway caved in and he said "fellas it's been good to know ya"

This is a really nice cover from a couple months ago by Home Free:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um1PCCkyYHE

Sir_Will posted...

This is a really nice cover from a couple months ago by Home Free:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um1PCCkyYHE

That's the one I mentioned earlier. Actually kinda liked how they acted it out for the video. Honestly, what I could see happening, is when they realized it was useless the crew started passing out cigarettes for that one last smoke. Even the non-smokers on the crew.

Apparently the recorded version of the Lightfoot song was the band's first take of the full song.

YellowSUV posted...

Apparently the recorded version of the Lightfoot song was the band's first take of the full song.

Oh damn.