The Edmund Fitzgerald Investigations
Вставка
- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- 1997 original version is 30 minutes long and was featured on PBS. The new Fitzgerald Investigations was updated in 2015 to 60 minutes and includes shipyard workers, former crew and more underwater footage of the Fitz. (c) 1997 Ric Mixter. Please do not copy this movie or segments without written permission.
When I was longhaul trucking. For a break in routine. I took a run up to the great Lakes. When I had a chance to see one of those big lake freighters. I can tell you no film or picture does justice to how huge those ships really are! They're the most monstrous things I've ever seen in my life.
I was up in Bay City, Michigan on vacation in August of this year, when we went to Lake Huron to swim we saw 2 different Carrier Freighters out on the lake, they were so close relatively (they were still well on the horizon) yet so huge, my son and I just floated in the Lake and watched them sail away over the horizon, I’ve always found the Great Lakes interesting but I truly fell in love with them after this trip and it was also a bit sobering thinking of how violent and fast an end it would have to be for a ship that size to have sank so fast without so much as someone grabbing the radio phone and screaming a ‘Mayday’ into the receiver. RIP not just to these poor guys that died on the Fitzgerald but to all the Mariners and Passengers unfortunate enough to have lost their lives on the Lakes
I remember my mum pointing out bigger ships on Lake St. Clair. Then later I saw them on the Detroit River. They are huge and majestic in their own right.
@@zachhoward9099 check out fraser shipyards superior wisconsin. Awesome place
You aren't lying. I drive a truck myself and occasionally have to deliver to the dry docks in south Tampa. Some of those freighters are literally the size of a city block or more. It's unreal how massive they truly are.
@@SouthernStorm_ It's definitely surreal to see. Give us a lot lizard 🦎 story.
I hear they can be quite a mess.
Have you ever seen a stunningly attractive lot lizard? Do they exist?
I was flying back home once on an international flight and we flew over one of the great lakes. We might as well been flying in the middle of the ocean. There was only water to be seen for over an hour. And that was flying at about 550 mph. It put into perspective how great the great lakes really are. No textbook or UA-cam video could ever come close to helping me realize the massive size of them.
One thing about sailors that always warms my heart is knowing that even when one captain absolutely hates another, if one is sinking, the other will always be there to help. It’s an incredible thing.
The ship's bell is sometimes referred to as the 'voice of the ship'. Bringing the ship's bell to the surface and putting it in a museum setting and ringing it 29 times each year in ceremony allows each of the ship's crew to speak once a year to remind people that she is still "underway".
I understand what you're saying, but the bell should not have been removed. It needed to stay and watch over her lost crewman.
Yes, because ships bells always keep a sharp eye out.
That despicable thief needs to give the bell back and pay reparations to the families. He stole it and then used it for his own financial gain. It really doesn't get lower than that.
The most famous last words in Maritime history, " We're holding our own."
Pumps that only work when it's empty of cargo..... brilliant!
To think about how massive this ship is, it's sitting in 530 ft deep. If you stood that ship upright at the bottom it would still stand 200 feet out of the water... so just imagine how tall the wakes were that night to drive the boat straight down and rip it in half...
Thats one theory..its not believable, heres why. the ship has no water inside, sure, its heavy, and had a load prone to shifting, but there were 3 holds. If a 3 sisters wave event made the nose dive, multiple hatches would have had to blow off immediately, maybe 5, 6 or 7 of the 22 hatches from the bow to amidships to allow enuf water in to create a downward rush with the stern intact.
Not if the boat was teetering on the 3rd wave the follow up would make that small space in between the next wave shallower then normal put it to deep in the break the next wave traps the bow under there for helping its nose touch bottom
@@pootthatbak2578, have you listened to the conversation between the 2 captains before the Fitz went down? She was taking on water. Captain Cooper asked if he had the pumps on. Yes, have both pumps going. Have a bad list.Taking on water.
@@pootthatbak2578 The holds were separated by mesh screen so it was like one big hold in terms of water. The wave that sunk the ship blew the 1st 2 hatch covers inward from the force. It also bent all the sunscreens and blew in the windows on the back of the pilot house. The others popped off on the way down from internal pressure.
@@pootthatbak2578 I still believe she nose dived and hit the Lake bed hard. You can see the damage up forward, and the Stern was snapped off by a following monster wave.. just say'n..
Gordon Lightfoot’s song gets a lot of recognition. But there is another work of art, “Ten November,” a play by Steven Dietz, which memorializes the Edmund Fitzgerald. It should be revived for the 50th anniversary year, and perhaps filmed.
Through this film I learned it launched on June 8th. My sister's birthday. I already knew it had sunk on my birthday 11/10. Odd and erie if only to me.
There's something very special about this Ship. It represents bravery, blue collar masculinity in an American way. It's so sad she sank. Thanks for the video 📷.
I agree w/you & that’s an EXCELLENT observation! Part of the grief I feel when I think about this tragedy is the strength & integrity of the crew re: their devotion to their jobs, no matter the conditions. These are attributes sorely missing in our culture today & we desperately need them to return.
@@lgempet2869 Yes. I agree with you about our culture today. Indeed.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called
Gitche Gumee 🇺🇲
Very well said.
The storm had push the lake level up more than 30 feet, from my recollection, in this area, and this was 1/2 a day AFTER the storm, but the wind was still blowing. At one point, passing a clearing, an alley in the trees, the bus was pushed into the other lane, a real wakeup.
The Fitz was often overloaded and needed a keel overhaul.She was tired.A massive wave broke her back
yea
I live in the sault and I was 13 at the time and I’ve never saw so many trees fall in one day, it was a storm of all storms, could hardly walk, our mom wouldn’t ketch’s out side because so many tres kept coming down. Heard of the wreck later that night. It was a bad day and night,
My dad was a shipmate he quit 5 years before it sailed out that last time he was a welder and he told me how they would overload it and the Edmund Fitzgerald most of the time and then watch another documentary where it said they had faulty hatches on another storm was really rough probably had everything to do with it those are two factors that should be considered also
They don’t know the cause of the sinking. They’ve speculated but no ones knows for sure and will never know. The captain spoke to another captain before they sank and he said they had a list and were taking heavy seas over the deck, had lost both radars but were holding their own. And they were caught in hurricane force winds at the time. The captain didn’t say why they were listing and we don’t know if he even knew why. But it sank suddenly and with no mayday call so whatever happened it happened very fast.
@@Trouble-Clef which most likely means they bottom out near caribou Island as those were notoriously dangerous for ships that got to close. That would most likely explain the list
Be more inclined that the bow went under due to the three sisters and the cargo shifted fwd,but yes always be a mystery.
@@bojanglesthewizard8875 no evidence of the ship's grounding was ever found on the shoals or on the bottom of the ship.
@@rspro575 they didn't find evidence on the stern. They didn't say anything about the bow. Still we can only speculate what happened
May the soul's of men , Crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald : R.I.P... 29 Bell's will forever ring.⚓
What was so poignant is that when they brought up the ship's bell the moment it broke the surface, it rang. Even the families present noted it.
30. They ring it 30x ...in honor of the late Gordon Lightfoot.
After Gordon Lightfoot's death, they rang the bell 29 times, then added one more to honor Lightfoot.
Used to wave at the crew as they came into Huron Ohio met the Captain once so sad...Rip 🙏
Wow closest coast guard was 20 hours away wow with 15 minutes of survival time in the icy water
They could probably figure out what happened now with all the technology. Shouldn't have banned going down there
It’s insane how massive this ship was and how big these freighters are and how amazing these things can float anyways I’ve visited Whitefish Point a few times and Lake Superior is a beautiful but intimidating body of water and ice cold in July anyhow Rest in Peace to the fellas who lost there lives and families to November nature in Lake Superior ✌️❤️🙏
Of course having a song written about it had nothing to do with it’s fame.
Damn, never saw this doc before, thanks for the upload
This is a great addition to my "More Edmund Fitzgerald" playlist.
@@harrietharlow9929 link lol?!?
@@RomeroTV ua-cam.com/video/lE2LOhs5jaE/v-deo.html
The three sisters theory of sinking is likely the most plausible given the evidence. However their is no impact crushing of the bow- the large crack in the forward section of the boat would have resulted from the front half of the ship which weighed from 10 to 12 thousand tons- landing on the bottom at 10- to 12 mph. But to reiterate the bow has no crush zone which would have had to have come from a nose first impact- proving there was NO deep dive bow first crash dive.. The Fitz broke in half because it was essentially a duplicate of the modular construction and welded hull plate built Liberty ships of ww2. Most other ore freighters had Riveted hull plates not welded plate. The welds got cold and then became brittle losing their strength, that, coupled with the fact that the Fitz was also criminally over loaded meant the sinking of the Fitz wsas basically inevitable.
best
Bruce Peek
There is footage here on UA-cam of the ship laying at the bottom of the lake. where you can see the deck is folded up. The first thing I thought was that she had broken in half just in front of the bulkhead.
@@aluminium3574 was about to say the same, his expertise isn't as extensive as he thinks. It's practically folded
According to the reported level of decomposition of the fabric of the life jacket and clothing, and the body itself, that body probably wasn't even from the Fitzgerald. There are blankets and draperies visible yards away that appear as if they just went down, yet hardly any material is left on the body, who's level of reported decomposition is also uncharacteristic for spending only 19 years (at the time) on the lake bottom.
What sank the ship? Money. Sailors know the seasonal weather. But the owners don't make money with an idle ship.
What are the top theories as to why the Edmund Fitzgerald sank ? Didn't Captain of Arthur Andersen say he thought ship EF bottomed out, ripping a hole in its bottom. Rip 28 brave men.
The top theory was either faulty hatches or insecure hatches resulting in taking on water but no one knows for sure and will never know. The captain of EF spoke with another captain shortly before they sank and he said they were listing, had lost both radars, and taking heavy seas over the deck and were in the worst seas he’d ever seen. They were caught in hurricane force wind at the time and no mayday call was made so whatever happened must have been quick. Even after the investigation the authorities could not say for sure what happened, they could only guess.
The hatch covers fits in the top slot of cause , the fracture theory is plausible, but according to Capt Cooper the Fitz wasn't near the shoals on the chart , so the fracture theory might be wear and tear on the hull , overloaded,rough seas, and there you go , and 29 souls went down with her RIP
caribou shoals likely
@@jayltd.7030 Not the Superior or six Fathom?
I'd say all 29 were brave. I haven't heard anything to the contrary.
The Fitzgerald went down the year I moved to N. Michigan, everyone was in shock and wondering how this happened.
As a child my Dad took us to watch the big freighters. Here's our conversation. (Remember I'm a child) Me: "It's so long! How come it doesn't break in half?" Dad: "Well sometimes they do." Me: "Then why do they build them?" Dad: "It moves a lot materials." Me: "What about the people on board?" Dad: "Hopefully they get out." My child's brain could see a risk. Wasn't it an accepted one?
The Fitz will live on forever!
💘 the Edmund Fitzgerald!
God bless all those brave people who braved the weather with their lives to try to save the Fitz.
This drives me crazy. Why stop dives to the ship? Because people died? Ridiculous. The crew won't care, they are dead. They are throwing away a perfectly good opportunity to find out exactly what happened, specially with modern technology. Figuring out what and how it happened is important. Airliners go down, do they say "Let's not investigate because people died" ? Hell no. They investigate and find out what happened.
let's make every bus crash a sacred site.
@@wisconsinfarmer4742 The site was declared a grave site by the Canadian Government at the request of the families of the lost !
The ship sank too fast, the crew had no chance.
Q)What happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald?
A) It sank.
The sinking of the Fitz was really similar to the Titanic, in that it totally shocked people that ships like those could actually sink...it seemed totally unthinkable.
The Liberty ships made during WWII were the first ships built in sections and put together! The Edmund Fitzgerald was just one of many built that way! In fact, each Liberty ship was built in 97 different sections! The sections already had everything in them needed including the living quarters, refrigerators and beds included!! Whoever made this video blew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any ship that is made really long like the Fitz that carries a lot of tonnage will be subject to breaking in half or breaking at some point simply because a long ship even 75 feet wide is very thin due to length! The sea bed and Great Lakes beds are full of ships that sank! Large ships with extreme length are easy to break in half when huge waves have been thrown at them from a storm! The shipping industry needs to build ships with less length! Just build two ships half the length of the Fitz and they will not break in half!
It looks like the width of the Soo lock restricts the ship width to 75 feet. I think I read that they now stretch to 1000 feet long. When you need ships in a hurry, you have to weld them. One welder can do the work of a forge tender, a rivet hander and a rivet bucker. like they did for LSTs in WW2. The Prairie Shipyard at Seneca could launch 4 ships a month with primarily women welders putting sub-assemblies together.
Hi, not sure if you totally understand shipping but nowadays 1000 foot freighters are the norm. There is many reasons why the Fitzgerald went down. One of the reasons is the cargo hold had screen mesh instead of bulkheads separating the holds. Which meant it was not as structurally sound. These ships flex and twist in bad sea. There is a guy on UA-cam called history mystery man. Im a bit obsessed about the Fitzgerald and this guy has been interviewing people associated with the Fitzgerald. One of those people is an actual captain and his uncle was on the Fitzgerald when she went down. Somewhere on UA-cam there is a video of the Fitzgeralds cook being interviewed. The cook did not go in the last trip for 2 reasons 1 his health was bad and 2 he knew the ship was in very bad dis repair. He warned Mcsorley not to do this last trip just put the ship in dry dock and retire. But mcsorley was a company man wanted to get that last trip in. A few people that mystery man spoke to also stated how bad of condition the ship was in. The reason why it hasn't been fixed was because the company was going to get as much money out of her as they can. Run her till she breaks, I dont think they wanted her to sink but Mcsorley wanted to get as much as he could then put her in dry dock. Its the same in the trucking industry. As long as the basic saftey equipment works run that truck. Sadly ive learned the Fitzgerald didn't have survival suits, back then it was an option. Now because of the fitz it is now mandatory. Now we have epirbs and other safety and survival Equipment.
Please allow another dive to attempt to locate mcsorleys log book!
More likely he was busy in the pilot house navigating
I find it strange why the Captain & Crews bodies were never recovered & placed in a proper grave. That is just how I feel about it.
Probably because 1) it was too late once they found the bodies, they were probably very fragile, 2) they left it out of respect as their final resting place with their ship.
The lakes are Fresh water and cold. So bodies don't float as well, sometimes not at all. The reason why dead bodies float is decomp gases produced by gut bacteria. Cold water slows that process greatly.
Also, life vests from that era arent great and get waterlogged quickly.
The good news is that there is a good chance the bodies of the crew are very well preserved.
To a mariner a sunken ship is a proper Grave.
There are hundreds of ships with sailors still on them. Pretty common in the lakes
Especially lake superior
@@tobiasfreitag2182 I concur
And shout out to the sault st Marie tribe of chippawa Indians for funding the bell recovery since ya know every documentary doesn't give the tribe credit for funding it lol
The Sault St. Marie Tribe of Chippawa Indians co-signed for the bell recovery loan; Great Lakes Shipwrecks Historical Society paid it in full.
@@adailyllama4786 True but the tribe didn't have to do that. I consider it an act of kindness to the families. To discount them out of the picture completely is disrespectful.
Beautiful job!! Thanks for sharing!
It was the spirits of the drowned men.
I was looking for this video for months and I was only getting the trailer in the UA-cam searches. Now it's here with a publish date over a year old? Where's it been hiding?
This is only the half hour original version. You'll find a full hour version available on DVD and hopefully soon a download. www.lakefury.com
"as both ships had to "turn into" those waves"
Not correct - with northwest winds, the Fitzgerald and Anderson never turned *into* the waves - as they both turned south, the waves that were building would board from aft/aft starboard quarter. So they were both moving in roughly the same direction as the waves.
To turn into the waves would mean changing course to the northwest, with the waves hitting the bows and rolling down the deck toward the stern.
The light at Whitefish Point wasn't even the biggest problem for the Fitzgerald - the power outage knocked ou the radio direction finder loop. Without her radars, Fitzgerald could've used the RDF to get a rough idea of her location.
To be fair to the Coast Guard, the tech in 1976 was not great, so it isn't a huge surprise they missed some things. Now you could get 4K imagine - if the Canadians allowed someone to do it, which they won't.
The body at the bow may not have been from the Fitzgerald. Waters at that depth are just above freezing. Anyone who has dove deep water wrecks on Superior where there are bodies present always comment on how well preserved they are. Bodies 70+ years old still have features that could allow them to be identifiable. The body near the hull was badly decomposed, as was their life jacket, making in wonder if it is a lost sailor from another wreck that just happened to float by and get caught on the wreck.
The bodies that the bell recovery team saw are, however, almost assuredly of the crew.
As for the cause... see the reply to this :-)
I get a lot of use out of this around this time of year. For those who support the shoaling theory, here's the timeline of when the Fizterald was in the vicinity of Caribou Island, are particularly Six Fathom Shoal:
From "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Frederick Stonehouse. pp 26-27:
"At 2:45 pm, the Anderson changed course to 130T to clear the Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. The Fitzgerald was observed to be about 16 miles ahead. The northwest winds had swelled to a blistering 42 knots. Only an hour earlier they had been at five knots. A heavy snow began to fall and the pilothouse watch on Anderson lost sight of the Fitzgerald. The Edmund Fitzgerald was never seen again.
The northwest seas began to build with alarming speed. The captain of Anderson was deeply concerned about the Six Fathom Shoal area north of Caribou Island. He thought his ship would be cutting it close and made a course change to avoid the area. Although the Fitzgerald had disappared from view, the Anderson had her on the radar screen as being 16 miles ahead and a "shade" to the right. Although no plot of the Fitzgerald's position was kept, watch officers on the Anderson observed her moving again to the right.
*To those aboard the Anderson "watching" the Fitzgerald through the eyes of radar, she appeared to pass north and east of Caribou Island, and, as Captain Cooper later testified, closer to the Six Fathom Shoal than he wanted the Anderson to be.*
Meanwhile, the seas had been building and the winds stepping up their force. At 3:20 pm, the Anderson recorded the winds to be howling at a steady 43 knots and the waves running up to 12 and 16 feet.Her deck was awash with heavy amounts of water.
Ten minutes later, the Anderson received a call from the Fitzgerald, still invisible, somewhere in the storm. Captain McSorley reported that his ship had "a fence rail down, two vents lost or damaged, and a list." Just how serious this damage was would become a future source for debate. It is important to note, though, that the Fitzgerald said she was slowing down so that the Anderson could catch up and keep track of her."
Stonehouse is one of the most respected historians of Great Lakes shipwrecks. He drew his timeline from the 3 reports (Coast Guard, Lake Carriers, NTSB) and first-person sources, like Captain Cooper.
Notice the timeline. Fitzgerald was working through the storm with no reports of issues - until shortly after the point where the Anderson and crew were watching her be "right" - more towards Caribou Island, and Six Fathom Shoal. The time Cooper would testify Fitzgerald was closer than he wanted to be.
You go from moving well though the weather to topside damage, and a list.
The supposed mystery of what happened to the crew. You know that pilot house had the remains of a few crew members, they all didn't get shoved down the stairs below or whatever. Rumor has it that 5 additional crew members were discovered, probably most, if not all, in the pilot house. Their location and what they were doing when they died does in fact provide clues to what caused this whole tragedy. The wheel was in the stop position, the port side door to the pilot house was dogged open, and the one crew member they admitted to finding near the bow has an old fashioned, cork life jacket that was hastily put on, either upside down or inside out (can't remember, but not relevant). What is relevant is that this strongly suggests whatever happened was very sudden and catastrophic. For a few terrifying seconds, they had time to stop the engines, someone threw on a life jacket and opened the port side door in a failed rescue attempt. Water pressures at 500 feet would have nullified any buoyancy and this suggests that the bow of the ship went under the surface right around the time those two 50-80 foot waves the Anderson reported caught up to the Fitz. So she was water logged and those 2 monster waves pushed tons of water and taconite pellets under and the foThe bow probably broke apart from the stern, the angle of damage to the bow suggests she hit at a 90 degree angle, yet the long, deep canal the bow dredged up suggests she hit at an angle long enough to plow out that trough. She split into two sections either separately or as one section that broke apart after the bow struck bottom. that is evidenced from the layer of pellets they find both on the bow and aft of the bow. So there were signs of trouble early on, I think it was stress fractures from a rotten keel, years of abuse, poor maintenance, and the energy released from that November gale delivered the coup. The crew just didn't vanish. Previous expeditions most certainly saw the bodies but knowing that this would traumatize the surviving loved ones and allow some self righteous parasitic, worthless pigs some call politicians in Michigan to get a feather in their cap as well as the wimpy, worthless pip squeak Canadian government to make itself feel important and flex its anemic muscles to tell others what they can or cannot do because supposedly parts of the wreck lay a few hundred feet into their so called territorial waters, they kept quiet because as soon as the mention of a body came up, everyone would get all riled up and very forementioned worthless asswipes in the government would get all self righteous and step in and close off future expeditions thus not allowing us to solve the puzzle or mystery, they chose to remain silent about the 6 bodies in total they probably discovered. So now we will never know and the cause will remain a mystery rather than be solved. If finding the cause could save just one life down trhe road by preventing this from happening again, but now it appears they will have passed in vain because all future dives have been forbidden by the pip squeak Canadian government.
Well said frightening what the crew faced with 90•angle. I've heard about crazy size waves inland lakes
@@sunsetlights100 well from the damage to bow from an estimated 40mph impact that goes from the bootom of the bow and ploughed out this massive trench which supposedly dug up twelve foot walls and made a course that was almost the length of a football field and the damage to the 'hat' of the bow suggests a nose dive
"6 bodies in total," what? But there were 29 crewmen and none surfaced?
A nosedive by the bow sounds like the only way this could have happened. Another documentary I watched spoke about how taconite ore is dangerously absorbent to water, absorbing 8 to 9 times its weight in water volume. It makes no sense that any Great Lakes mariners or captain that routinely transported taconite ore during that time of year, which was notorious for ship-sinking storms, would risk leaving hatches open upon departure- especially because Capts. McSorley and Cooper already knew they were headed into heavy storms at the time they left. There's a reason "batten down the hatches" is an expression.
I don't know how the Three Sisters ended up being discounted so quickly in this video. It wouldn't take flooding the hatches for a rogue wave, especially a series of them, to sink a ship. It's also the only thing that explains why all 29 sailors were trapped on the ship and they never issued a distress call. Nothing else can take a ship down that quickly.
The only alternative is that water got into the cargo hold another way, the taconite increased in volume rapidly as it all shifted forward or to one side, and the Fitz didn't stand a chance. If she caught one or more rogue waves from the front, that would have been enough to shift all the iron to the bow by itself.
It may be my cynicism about corporate oligarchy and the lengths they will go to for profit, but I've privately wondered if the Fitz wasn't deployed in rough conditions, with dangerous cargo, after years of possibly poor maintenance (according to some accounts), with the hope for a big insurance payout on a ship whose bankers and corporate backers knew was likely to sink. It wouldn't be the first time something like this was done. If the ship was indeed getting older and in need of more moneyed repairs, I think it's highly plausible.
As an aside, it drives me crazy that everyone in that region insists on pronouncing Sault Sainte Marie wrong. It's not hard to say "Saul," and it is a French name, after all.
I never realized they had actually found so many bodies of the crew. I'm not a seaman, but I don't understand why they wouldn't recover and identify them?
Because at 500 ft down, scuba divers can only operate for a few minutes, at the price of several hours of decompression. Just operating at that depth is extremely dangerous. And an ROV that's small enough to get through the tunnels and such would be too small to drag a body out-- assuming the body wasn't so fragile as to break apart trying to handle it. I suppose nowadays, you could bring in saturation divers, but since Fitz's spar deck has collapsed, there's serious danger of getting trapped in the wreck.
And they didn't find "so many bodies." There's one that evidence suggests is NOT from the Fitz, and possibly another. Out of 29.
Wendy Goerl 21:25 says dive leaders did report seeing bodies. It only makes sense. If the bodies didn't float and wash up on shore, they must be in/near the wreck. It seems the newt suit diver was able to work at that depth effectively cutting off and re-attaching the bell. A diver with such gear should be able to recover bodies.
Because the families don't want them to just like the Arizona.
Exactly Dean , the families don’t want them disturbed if found .
Rip crew
@@wendygoerl9162 not from the fitz ?
From all the stories I’ve read the Fitz was often overloaded and under maintained and the building quality just couldn’t handle a ship of that size, I’m not an expert so I couldn’t say that any of it was true but I think those played key factors in the sinking, had the holds been watertight and the cargo not shifted forward, I think the Fitz would’ve maybe survived the night but still would’ve hit the bottom and took a lot of damage, still would’ve sank but I think most of the crew would’ve survived long enough to get rescued and the ship would’ve sank at least partially and slowly went down the rest of the way
It’s a Very Haunted area. ,Many lakes in Michigan/Canada. Took many ships to their grave on the bottom
My Dad was on the Woodrush.
Joseph K
It would be interesting to hear what he says about the search for the E.F.?? The Captain of the Woodrush says his own crew were out in that same storm looking for any sign of life, but that they remained stoically brave and determined despite being uncomfortably fearful. So, your dad must have been very brave,too!!
Elizabeth Whiteoak my little sister contracted meningitis when just a couple weeks old. She was severely handicapped for the rest of her short life. The doctors told my parents that they wouldn't be able to care for her and tried to urge them to give her to a state facility. My Dad loved and cared for her like a knight, and i remember staying at the Ronald McDonald house in Toledo as a child. She passed when she was 5...i was 7. My Mom died of cancer at the age of 47 in 2001. My Dad is made of steel...any one of these tragedies would have made me fold probably. But he's alive and well and still working every day. He's very brave indeed.
Elizabeth Whiteoak ....but i remember always being in the back seat of the car as a child, listening to the oldies. Every time the Gordon Lightfoot song came on he would tell me how he was on the rescue ship to the Edmund Fitzgerald. He was a chef in the coast guard, so the part of the song where they mention the ol cook(Robert Rafferty) always makes me think about him. But as a little kid i remember thinking how ancient the song and the story seemed to me...seemed like a hundred years before me. I was born in 78....by the way, im 39 and can't swim and have always been afraid of the water
Joseph K
Wow, Joseph K .. I only just found your kind replies and I feel so incredibly privileged to hear you talk about your Dad .. I never knew mine, he died just before I was born after complications .. He'd lost a kidney to a Japanese sniper's rifle at just 19yo during WWII on the Kokoda Trail in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and he never fully recovered although he lived another 22vyears with it. I am so sorry for your own losses. Your Dad sounds exactly like the kind of strong and stoic sailors the Captain of the Woodrush so proudly described that made up his crew .. He certainly spoke of them with great pride, and hearing you speak about your Dad with such love and admiration gave me goosebumps. I've had a long fascination with the EF and I'm so glad that you replied to share what it was like to hear your Dad talk about being on the Woodrush. Thank you!
We will never know the truth of what happened, but give respect to the crew and the families of those who perished. The maritime research, and investigations, and who knows how many other official investigative agencies how looked into this tragedy. It will never be truly known what happened, because there is no survivors or recorded evidence, so like a " black box on a n
So what about the rest of the shipwrecks that have bodies still on them?
Considering the depth of the water is less than the length of the Fitzgerald, is the ship a hazard for other vessels?
No. The top of the wreck is still almost five hundred feet under the surface.
I don't really get the bell recovery either. What was the point? Who really wanted the bell to be cut off? And then they 'restored' it to a condition it had never been in. Just kind of weird and feels like some desperate grab at something tangible.
I guarantee you that the reason those men are gone is because of greed and nothing else!!!
She should have had watertight compartments but that would cost more and weigh more!
She also was probably overloaded!
The super rich don't give a crap about safety, it's all about how much they can make!!!
and a cost benefit analysis with insurance.
Five are dead and many maimed because of the Didion brothers grain mill explosion. And gas lighting OshA inspections.
EXTREMELY MASSIVE
I'm dad has pictures of him with the crew playing cards which I guess they did a lot of times with her pay and we also have real to real footage of them going through the Sault ste Marie
how did the top of the bridge get mangled like that ,the top of ship did not hit the bottom so what did the damage over the bridge windows ?Giant wave ?
Would be great without the sub-titles
your credits have a typo in the Special Thanks To section. on the line WWMT TV 9 & 10. WWMT is Channel 3 in Kalamazoo. WWTV and its repeater WWUP are TV 9 & 10 in Cadillac and Sault Ste Marie.
I really want to see some of the footage of the bodies at the bottom, they have to be extremely eery looking!!!!!!! I've been a diver my whole life and have seen some messed up shit, ships, planes, and car wrecks in Lake Michigan, but the Big Fitz just intrigues the hell out of me and I need to see!!!!!!!
The lakes don't give back the dead only one body has been found and documented. Found in 94 on one of the last dives. He's still down there with the Fitz, all 29 and only one body was spotted....
And they said the one body looked as if he was on display at funeral home still preserved from the icy waters
I find it beyond belief that no bodies were ever found except one…..It almost sounds supernatural in some respects- how can this be?
@@lgempet2869 They're all down there, they've only just mentioned the one, but other dives to the wreck have seen more!
@@HonRevPTB Ok, thank you….then that definitely makes more sense.
Can't turn off cc.
it got torn during the launch.
Yep, it started leaking in 1958 and finally filled up with enough water to sink it in 1975. I think you've solved the mystery.
She had design flaws, the hold should have been separated and water tight, she had no way to pump water from the hold when loaded
When the hold is empty, and water comes in, it is easy to pump out as it is pure water. When the hold is full of little porous beads of iron ore which absorb water, it is impossible to pump out as it becomes a sort of sludge.
A nosedive by the bow sounds like the only way this could have happened. Another documentary I watched spoke about how taconite ore is dangerously absorbent to water, absorbing 8 to 9 times its weight in water volume. It makes no sense that any Great Lakes mariners or captain that routinely transported taconite ore during that time of year, which was notorious for ship-sinking storms, would risk leaving hatches open upon departure- especially because Capts. McSorley and Cooper already knew they were headed into heavy storms at the time they left. There's a reason "batten down the hatches" is an expression.
I don't know how the Three Sisters ended up being discounted so quickly in this video. It wouldn't take flooding the hatches for a rogue wave, especially a series of them, to sink a ship. It's also the only thing that explains why all 29 sailors were trapped on the ship and they never issued a distress call. Nothing else can take a ship down that quickly.
The only alternative is that water got into the cargo hold another way, the taconite increased in volume rapidly as it all shifted forward or to one side, and the Fitz didn't stand a chance. If she caught one or more rogue waves from the front, that would have been enough to shift all the iron to the bow by itself. It's notable, however, that divers to the wreck report that two of the hatches were buckled inward, implying a huge downward force onto them at some point, and resultant leakage. Mike TenEyk said in an interview that it wouldn't take rogue-sized waves to cause that buckling or leakage, just the 30-ft waves constantly battering the ship may have been enough.
It may be my cynicism about corporate oligarchy and the lengths they will go to for profit, but I've privately wondered if the Fitz wasn't deployed in rough conditions, with dangerous cargo, after years of possibly poor maintenance (according to some accounts), with the hope for a big insurance payout on a ship whose bankers and corporate backers knew was likely to sink. It wouldn't be the first time something like this was done. If the ship was indeed getting older and in need of more moneyed repairs, I think it's highly plausible.
Sadly, I also think it's plausible that McSorley's "We're holding our own" might have been due to knowing they were utterly screwed and didn't want Cooper to take the risk of the Anderson and its crew coming back for them when he knew there was nothing anyone could do to save the Fitz.
As an aside, it drives me crazy that everyone in that region insists on pronouncing Sault Sainte Marie wrong. It's not hard to say "Saul," and it is a French name, after all.
I grew up in Toledo Ohio, It has always bothered me that the blame for the sinking of the Fitz has been laid at the feet of her crew and Captain. And to that I say "No way!" The hatches didn't give way, McSorley didn't run her a ground.
I seriously doubt the hatches were left open improperly by the crew, but they may well have not been watertight due to faulty gaskets or wear and tear.
I agree that it wasn’t the crew’s fault & don’t believe the faulty hatch theory either. My thoughts though are that the Fitz likely touched ground near Caribou Island b/c the Fitz had lost radar in the storm & was sailing blind…even Captain Cooper of the Anderson, who was nearby said the Fitz was FAR too close to that island for comfort. And the Fitz was overloaded and had been operating overloaded for years….ultimately, over time, that will take a toll on the structural soundness of a ship & in combination w/a wicked November storm, that’s all it would take.
Claude LaMont was down in the submersible?
I agree with the families that the crew should not be disturbed and that is their final resting place. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these brave men. I was 22 years old when the great ship went down. Mother Nature can be very nasty at times. God Bless every one involved with the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The victims won't know or feel a thing. Dead is dead. Exploration and discovery should take precedent over superstition.
@@jps101574 It's called having some fcking respect. That greedy low-life already stole the bell, and you want him to do more? It ain't about superstition, it's about not being a horrible person. The KIDS of those men are still alive. This wasn't some thousands-of-years-ago thing. Digging up Pompeii or something is fine, but goddamn, what could possibly be so scientifically important about the crew/wreck that you have to disregard the wishes of people who DIRECTLY knew those men? Blech, how disgusting... I hope you develop some basic decency, unlike the graverobber.
jps101574, the dead should absolutely be respected, however, had it been a plane crash the authouities would have pot back together every little scrap. Personally, in this situation I think that the prevention of this happening again by learning what really happened should have been done. I feel bad for the families. Disrespecting others faith or non faith is not cool.
I do apologize for the spelling errors. I should have proofread my comment. Especially considering this tablet does not have a flipping edit button.
@@garylefevers Science takes precedent over faith, period.
I find it interesting that a snow storm of flurrys powdered snow came thru an blocked visiblity of the ship sinking an would think of the crew seeing anything out of their windows or portals they would just see a snow storm....blinding both views of the perspective in an out....at the moment 3 big waves hit....
29 bells for the crew
Yesterday was the anniversary of the wreck. 75 years ago yesterday.
your math is off...
Where did you get that crazy number? Try again
45 years ago in 2020.
New math
I guess that makes me about 85. I know I feel old, but damn, first thing Monday I'm retiring and applying for Social Security. No need for a 2 week notice. At this age there's no time to waste. 🤭
It's fair use guys.
I can only speak for myself. If I was on the Fitz and floating around the ship? I personally would want to be brought up to the surface and given a proper burial service. My mom and family can't visit my gravesite in the middle of lake Superior? Now can they? I'm a betting man. So I bet the deceased would want the same...... Any rational mind person would agree. it's not like going 5 miles under water? The Bell was a nice jester. So I have relatives who are fishermen out of Gloucester,ma to Maine . They I'm sure wouldn't want their body left on the bottom of lake Superior?
It may get some heat ot spiteful comments to state, but Cpt. McSorley pushed on knowing that his ship had issues and that it was due for drydock and major hull repairs after this run, yet he insisted on riding out into the Lake when other, more modern ships took shelter.
His reason was because he was retiring after this run, and that his wife was sick at home, so he took a chance, and lost in the worse possible way.
He was negligent in doing so.
Not saying that he whould have known, or deserved what happened by any means, but you don't just gamble with a multi million dollar vessell and the lives of 28 other crewmen.
How could they build the Fitz without water tight bulkheads?
NattyBumppo48 commercialism is why no bulk heads the more freight the more money it was unfortunate this happened rip Edmund Fitzgerald and crew you are not forgotten
Tyler Buckley
The E.F. and her 29 crew will never be forgotten. And that's very much thanks to the Canadian singer-songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot, for his haunting mariner's homage to the E.F. and her crew which recounts the full story of the ship, her sinking, and the aftermath with such uncanny accuracy and memorable beauty. Whether or not you like Lightfoot, unless it was one of your very own relatives among the 29 victims that gives this particular sunken ship some personal importance or significance, then it's his ballad that forever immortalized the E.F. into the legend she is today, and his homage is the only reason why she's not "just another shipwreck" among the 6,000 others lying at the bottom of the Great Lakes in practical obscurity. RIP the crew of the E.F. .. Never forgotten.
EDIT: I don't think that any bulk carriers are able to be built with watertight bulkheads?
Because it’s a cargo ship.
Well they did, between the cargo bay and the bow/stern sections. The LCA has fought watertight dividers between the cargo holds since the 1920's on the grounds that it slows loading/unloading. Not that watertight bulkheads between the holds did any good for the Derbyshire, which--despite happening in an ocean on the other side of the world--went down in a manner eerily similar to the Fitz.
No freighter has watertight bulkheads
Interesting but sad
The subtitles detract from the video, since they're quite inaccurate with regards to what's actually being said.
The bell was their grave stone. Should not have been takin off and replaced. It's the same as someone stealing your loved ones headstone to display for profit. Very disrespectful.
The ship is the grave..the name is still visible below the bridge. The bell was something for the families closure, they can touch it as their husbands brothers and fathers once did...my buddy just died..i cant talk or see him ever again..but im wearing his ballcap right now.
@@pootthatbak2578 Sad you lost your friend but glad you have something of his to remember him by. My condolences.
Makes me think of the Lutine Bell, formerly at Lloyd's in London. Rung twice when a vessel survived, rung once when one went down. It was rung once when my great-uncle Piero's vessel went down off Nantucket in '56.
They guy they found on the bottom was the guy who opened the door
Hobaugh knew DAMN WELL there was NO WAY he was going to be able to pilot that Tiny CG Vessel in time to rescue ANYONE on the Fitz. His involvement was of zero worth.
He did "Jack Squat" in this tragedy !
@Choo Suck
Your name PROVES you are one.....🤣
Whats your problem? It took 20 hours to get there..so what? resilent men that might have abandoned ship with some sort of flotation could have survived. They would have been unconscious or half dead, but it was worth a try. A german submarine crew survived 50 horrible hours treading water in the atlantic after they lost their boat.
@@pootthatbak2578 I agree. The effort was well worth it. At that point no one knew if there were survivors or not.
So Cousteau was right the Fitz broke in half. It did so because like all other freighters on the lakes it was built long and skinny in a rectangular shape- not box like like ocean going freighters.
best
Bruce Peek
Yep, the Fitz was routinely over loaded and over worked. We got it.
Definitely. And not well-maintained.
Nose dive killed the Fitz.
There are good arguments that it split in two on the surface.
@@QuartzDiamond86 If it split in two on the surface, the stern section would of been found miles away from the bow section like the Daniel J Morrell. The EF stern is only a couple of hundred feet away from the bow.
Time to leave the dead rest.
The Canadians and Americans who sail the Great Lakes are a unique breed. No other country on Earth has anything like the lakes. The Russians used to have Lake Baikal, before it dried up….and Lake Titicaca is a hell of a big lake….but nothing else really compares. The bravery required to sail on the lakes is enormous….
Lake baikal has far from dried up. It still contains more water and is deeper than superior despite global warming
Where'd you ever get that idea? Lake Baikal still exists and contains more water than all five Great Lakes.
.
None of the analysis of the causes of the wreck blames poor ship maintenance. It was ship design, overloading, and an exceptional storm. And personally, as a post war child of the “working class”, I challenge your assumption that only children of white collar families were gifted with intelligence.
People have all these crazy stories in the comments, I've only been on a ferry once. There were black clouds in the distance and I was honestly scared
Ring it 29 times
👍👍
So very. Sad. !! Still. A. Mystery. Of circumstance. No words really. Describe. ! Living on the coast. We. See. Large. Ships every day. And. Huge. Lengths. Eerie. Weird. And. All kinds. Of. Foreign. Names on them. And. Some. Smells. I think are. Illegal. !
Wait so the bell in the museum is fake?...where is the real one and why?
the one in the museum is the real one... a replica replaced the original with the names of the crew...that bell now sits on the ship
The disaster is sad that no one survived or was found devastating that all were lost and not one was recovered to tell the tale I just believe the tragedy was a combination of factors that created a disasterous recipe for tragic events that would be the demise of ship & crew that fateful evening like Gordon says in his tribute song the Captain & Crew were well seasoned it would be extremely cold & calous & disrespectful to comment on the Captain & his Crew as to their seamanship was beyond excellence their fate came down to the storm of the century and unforeseen circumstances that the old Fitz for all his strength n glory just could not weather that storm it was just too much that night some say it was overloaded ?? We will never know why would a top hand Captain risk his ship & crew it just don’t add up we will never know all the facts so let’s let them all rest in peace none of us are qualified I am not a Mariner or cargo ship payload specialist or structural engineer I know nothing about Seamanship or water vessel operations I know Trucking and that’s that as far as cargo transport goes but the two are totally different genres again there a lot of unanswered questions And those answers are at the bottom of Lake Superior for all eternity it’s just going to be known as too many unknown factors that interweaved to create the finished product of catastrophic devastation but those Men all were the finest human beings there are God bless them because every time you drive a motor vehicle or use a hand tool or ocuppy a large structure or turn a bolt or screw you may just have used their previous cargo shipments
So if the sport divers are all wah wah wahhing about not being allowed to dive the Fitzgerald wreck, then they can just suck it up.
best
Bruce Peek
Unbelievable we don’t need to see the bodies but it would be nice to ascertain the state of the bodies to see if they were trying to escape or were in their bunks. Such soft female type males , it was a tragedy, but to see the big picture would be nice. Bringing the bell was awesome to have this history memorialized. Good grief.
about minute two...not true!!! ships had been built in such sections / blocks since the liberty ships of WW2...
After awhile, it's time to stop opening the "coffin" to gawk at the remains - ship or human. You don't see folks doing this at cemeteries.
Diving at the wreck was outlawed in the 90’s after it was declared a gravesite
You don't see that at cemeteries because it's illegal...
Why not photograph. Grow up The crew was dead for years.
No Bulk head ? That mite have doomed the ship .
The Edmund Fitzgerald does not haunt or mesmerized me.. When I hear talk of haunting supernatural.. bad luck brought onto the vessel due to the way the vessel was Christian.. etc that means something went wrong.. someone is trying to put this to bed.. someone is trying to cover up liability incompetence. It was corporate greed. That is motive. Creating that vessel to be able to carry the maximum and at the same time barely get through the lock.. for the long tonnage it would haul and the constraints of it maximum length and width I guarantee stability was compromised. And there must have been a reason for the short draft on vessel. I'm thinking somehow they were trying to compensate for the improper length and width and load maximum. But unfortunately after a period of time the hull would fail. I wonder how much that ship paid off in insurance.As soon as the vessel hit bottom the consideration of family and Friends no longer exist. Body should be exhumed deaths have occurred autopsies analysis. This is critical for the justice of those who died and those Mariners in the future that risk their lives only Great lakes everyday. It's become a carnival who gives a damn about the museum if we don't have the truth. Supernatural That's obstruction of Justice. If you ever become a a mariner and you find yourself out in the middle of an ocean desert.. you quickly realize that you our existing only inches away from sure death. All you have is what you brought with you.. and the fear that the vessel has been engineered correctly. This is key to survival. If the captain makes a mistake. The engineers make a mistake The misfortune of bad weather The vessel has been engineered to compensate for these things so that loss of life does not occur. Corporations are designed to to make money as dastardly and efficiently as possible.. and the humans that operate the corporation buffer their human responsibility from the truth and liability by the shield.. I have nothing to do with that it's corporate policy.
Huh? So crawl under a bush. Corporations requirements for the best profits create the jobs that have given us deplorables a way of life so comfortable and safe. Do you realize that? Would you like to survive eating berries and bugs occasionally eating a horse, all the while being naked and cold exposed to the elements all day and night? Its a good trade off. Servitude to a corporation or dirt poor eating grass..ask north koreans what they eat in 2021
Where’s the original bell now? The museum lied to me lol
Whitefish point
They should of put up on leeward side of isle royal. Would a should a.
Blech, that graverobbing freak really had the gall to lie like that on TV? Awful.
The Sea ? No it’s a Lake
A priest should go down to the sight and say a prayer there for the crew.
While he’s there, he should ask him why he sank it.