That doesn't look good, does it? No it doesn't.
I'd be scared.
At 7:10 pm EST Captain Ernest M. McSorley, asked by another ship's captain how he was doing, answered "We're holding our own." Moment's later, that wave hit, plunging the SS Edmund Fitzgerald bow-(to right)-first straight to the bottom of Lake Superior. It took the bow two minutes and change to dive 530 feet, just about a record.
The Fitzgerald was already crippled when that wave hit. 100 mph winds, a "bomb storm." It's radar had been disabled, the onshore lights had also been knocked out, the Fitzgerald was sailing quite blind. It had been taking on water for a few hours, hatch covers not tightly secured, and had been listing, 4 degrees earlier, 7 degrees now, "green water" washing over its deck, causing the ship, with 26 tons of iron ore pellets in its hold, to ride lower and lower in the water.
The waves would come up from the stern, smash into the pilot house on the bow as ocean waves do a seawall and then rebound back down onto the center part of the ship with sufficient force to cause the 7-ton/12-ton I forget which, hatch covers to implode, to implode, friends and enemies. The pounding of the waves caused the Fitzgerald to see-saw, the bow rising up out of the water and then plunging. The pilot house would submerge from this stern-to-bow pounding, the whole thing, Captain McSorley on the bridge with it; the pilot house would be completely under water, and then it would bob up again.
I'd be scared.
When that wave hit the prevailing theory is it submerged the pilot house and the first time McSorley realized there would be no bob up again was when the the water pressure from the ship's speedy descent to the bottom blew the windows out. So there was no time to radio the SS Arthur Anderson that they were not holding their own.
The prevailing theory is that that wave also torqued the Fitzgerald in midsection, splitting it in two on the surface and causing the stern to come to rest upside down on the lake bed.
The Fitzgerald disappeared from the Anderson's radar and when visibility cleared at 7:30 pm Captain Jesse Cooper could no longer see the Fitz or raise her on the radio. So, this post is published at 7:15 pm, on the 40th anniversary of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Twenty nine men lost their lives. The wreck was made legend in song by Gordon Lightfoot in 1976. The guitar riff is haunting, the drum beat, funereal, Lightfoot's voice a wail. Powerful, powerful work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
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
The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
Then later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
When the wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
'Twas the witch of November come stealin'
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind
When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck
Sayin' "Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya"
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in
He said, "Fellas, it's been good to know ya"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words* turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms** of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
*The Youtube video of the song linked to on USA Today has the lyrics scrolling down the screen and the word "waves," for "words." I have listened, Lightfoot enunciates clearly and he clearly says "words." It's not even close.
**Youtube has it as "ruins." It's rooms. Youtube is in ruins.
