What Sank the Edmund Fitzgerald?

On November 10th, 1975, the Great Lake bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald would become the most famous wreck in the history of the Great Lakes. Its demise is one of great mystery and speculation with a blend of meteorology and forensics engineering.

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JUNE FIRST PODCAST:

0:00 - Intro
0:42 - Ship's History
1:29 - Final Voyage
6:50 - Immediate Aftermath
7:22 - Sinking Investigations and Theories
11:38 - Storm Reanalysis
12:50 - Conclusion

#EdmundFitzgerald #documentary #GreatLakes #Midwest #Weather #Ships #Ship

[Autum-MrsPink]

When Gordon Lightfoot passed away the next November 10th the bell at the Seaman’s Chapel near Detroit was rang 30 times. 29 for the crew of the Fitz and 1 for Lightfoot.

[rickking]

The actual audio of Cooper being asked to turn around and go look for survivors was bone chilling. You could tell in Cooper's pause that he didn't want to go back out but knew he had to.

[alexrompen]

Can we all take a moment to respect the utter balls of IRON of the crew of the Anderson and Clay Ford to go BACK OUT into that kind of storm to try and save the Fitzs crew?

[mycawk]

This story always gives me chills. Even the song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald gets me everytime.

[Mohagany]

As someone who grew up on Michigan's Lakes, this wreck is the one most people know, because it took a perfect storm of unfortunate events to happen. lot of great lakes wrecks are running aground or collisions, with most of the open water wrecks being large storms in the early 1900s. For a ship this size to sink at a time where these things were much less common with no clear cause has made it one of the biggest mysteries of the region. And for those that don't know, Lake Superior may as well be its own ocean. It sails in a much different way than most lakes.

[thomasj]

What I find interesting is that the Anderson was 6 years older than the Fitzgerald and it was lengthened 120 feet during the 1974-75 winter layup period. The additional length made the Anderson slightly longer than the Fitzgerald but the Fitzgerald was 5 feet wider giving them more stability than the Anderson. The Anderson is still in service as of January 2025

[johnlockelmao]

Dude the playing is so clean, loved to hear it.

[Michrailfan]

As a Michigander, this video is incredible! I’ve watched dozens of videos and have read multiple books about the Edmund Fitzgerald and this is the BEST documentary I’ve seen of her. Great work June First.

[itinerantpatriot]

My Dad knew a lot of the guys on the Fitz, including the Captain. He was a supervisor on the docks in Detroit but for a time he worked for a company that helped maintain the lake boats and was part of the team that did a refit for the Fitz in the late 60s. The day that ship went down was a tough day for him. Later, when my friends and I would camp off Whitefish Bay I would look out over the water and think to myself, the Fitz is out there somewhere, a tomb lying at the bottom of that cold lake. RIP guys.

[zombienursern]

I live a five minute walk to the beach of Lake Erie. As a teenager, we often watched the Fitzgerald come into dock and get unloaded by the Huelett shovels. I can still see her in all of her majesty. 😢

[tedebayer]

In the 90s I was a property manage (in Ontario Can), and one of the tenants, Mr Anglin, who I got to know quite well, told me of that day. He was on the ship trailing the E Fitzgerald. He was a retiree when I knew him, spending over 30 years on the lakes, after a career in the Canadian Navy (WW2 vet). In his one room he had a large display of his history, medals, and a quite large replica model of his last ship the Anderson. He knew all the dimensions, tonnage etc. He told me the story of that day, how rough the waters were, how scared they were, and of seeing the lights ahead of the E Fitzgerald and then nothing. Anyways, great old guy, always friendly and smiling, stories were a tad long, but looking back I wish I had heard more of them. He passed away in 2004 at age 88.

[eaglescout]

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" Such a great song. And yet, such a tragedy that had to happen for it to be written.

[Kaidhicksii]

Didn't know you were also into shipwrecks! Based. My theory of what doomed Big Fitz is simply a combination of issues. Overloading (the ship had a max deadweight capacity of ~26, 000 long tons and was constantly carrying over that throughout her career, including her final voyage), hull fatigue, grounding on Six Fathom Shoal, then getting bodied by one or two rogue waves, sending her into a nose dive to the bottom, where the impact might have been enough to completely shatter her midsection, hence why we see nothing left of it in the wreck. May her crew and Gordon Lightfoot (who's been gone for 2 years now; still crazy for me to believe) continue to rest in peace.

[Weez]

One of the better documentaries I have seen about the Fitz.

[Byanairofficial]

I really like, how you played “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. It gives some atmosphere to the disaster :). Really good explanation video!

[pc_buildybi]

Here's what put the Fitz down;

1 - The ground upon which the choice Great Lakes Engineering Works slipway was built was very swampy, even though it had been built up and continuously flattened over and over - this led to the concrete and steel flexing along certain areas and providing an overall uneven building surface. A ship the size of the Fitz had never been built by the yard nor in that manner before, and she was built during a time "eyeball engineering" saw the most widespread application. That is, the Fitz's keel and hull overall were somewhat deformed from the get-go, meaning the hull wouldn't disperse stresses evenly and key fracture points would occur over time. This has been observed in numerous other similarly-built vessels over time, which are known to form seemingly random "stress cracks". This is part of the reason why.


2 - The design lacked any transverse watertight bulkheads, with the ship only having screen bulkheads. Due to the massive, mostly empty hull and without the reinforcement of lateral bulkheads throughout the length of hull, the Fitz was more prone to flexing and twisting in big seas and would flex and twist further than a vessel that had proper transverse bulkheads installed throughout the hull. This flexing and twisting of the steel not only put excess strain onto the hull and caused faster wear and stress cracking, but it also slightly warped the steel over time. One of the listed repairs needed once the Fitz would be in dry dock (scheduled some short time after her final voyage would begin) was an overhaul including hatch cover replacements. In some areas, the steel was so warped that the hatch covers couldn't be sealed completely. This is not on the crew nor the captain.

3 - A key inspection from local welders noted the Fitz had earned a few stress cracks during her career which had been repaired over time - it's not the fact they were improperly repaired but moreso the fact these stress fractures occurred at all, indicating the steel wasn't holding up very well with the design loads the ship was being given during her trips. On top of this, in a few cases, her pilothouse windows would bust due to the warping of the steel frame in that part of the ship, and new windows had to be installed with frames re-welded. This was a further indication of just how much punishment the ship was weathering.

4 - At the last unloading before her final cargo loading (River Rouge, Zug Island) the crane lifting the taconite pellets out of the Fitz's holds snagged on 20 feet of steel plating sealing the ballast tank from the hold. While dock workers reportedly offered to weld it back over, they claimed McSorely refused, saying they were on a tight schedule and would have the repair done once the ship was later in dry dock. This is well before McSorely knew about the storm - had he known at this point, he most likely would have accepted the assistance.


5 - The Fitz didn't have any sum pumps in her cargo holds, only water pumps in her ballast tanks. This is a flaw in the design - flooding in the cargo holds cannot be relieved. This is supported by McSorely's note over the radio later on that he was taking on water despite both his ballast pumps being active and ties into another point - the Fitz almost certainly grounded on the Caribou shoals, damaging the keel and ripping open one of the ballast tanks. With a heavy influx of water and loose, unwelded deck plating in the hold, the ballast tank began to overflow, causing a list, and the overflow from the ballast tank then began to flood the cargo hold.


6 - For the condition she was in, and her design spec, the Fitzgerald was technically overloaded on her last load. With a heavier load than she could safely take, and an already stressed and fatigued hull, the vessel would be at a high risk in rough weather. With heavy seas washing over the decks and pounding the hull and hatch covers, the ship was subjected to even more stress. McSorely surely understood this, and powered up full to try to rush to Whitefish Bay before the weather took them out (as he had fence rails down due to the hull's twisting, water in the holds, and a bad list already at this point).

7 - The Fitz was almost certainly struck by Cooper's rogue waves and sent underwater. The pilothouse windows would have imploded, the water pressure would have blown the hatch covers in one by one, and the ship would have taken a nosedive down to the bottom. She struck hard on the lakebed and the stress broke the ship in two, with the stern likely capsizing due to a combination of rapidly flooding holds and shifting cargo weight. As the stern capsized and went down, the rest of the impartially flooded cargo holds experienced implosion as the hatch covers gave in, spilling the taconite pellets all over the bottom around the wreck, before the stern finally settled on the bottom next to the bow.


The Fitz wasn't done in by any one factor but a bad combination of multiple issues.

[hughjass]

I was 13 in 1975 and not much of a Gordon Lightfoot fan but I was a sea cadet and aspired to be a mariner and that ballad really got to me. 50 years later, it still does.

[ottosaxo]

That beautiful old weather chart at 11:40 shows the moment when the peak of the windstorm was located in the trough along the Chicago/Milwaukee region. A new trough can be seen, crossing the coast of the Upper Peninsula down to the northwest of Wisconsin, probably veering to the southern flank of the core within the next few hours, and this one might have brought the moment of fate.
I drew so many weather charts listening to the sea weather reports before the age of internet, the only tools were the radio, my own barometer, a self-drawn map on a pasteboard, a piece of chalk and a duster, hastily making nasty white clouds in front of the house door before it was time to sit down and listen.

[EchoSierra]

The Edmund Fitzgerald was 728 ft long. The depth it's at is 528 ft. It was in a massive storm, I'm guessing it came down from a massive wave and buried its bow into the lake bed which is why both halves are right next to each other.

When the Daniel J. Morrell sank the stern was found 5 miles away.

[RyanKlapperich]

Great video! Ive see a lot of Fitzgerald docs and this is the first time I've seen someone discuss the unique weather and wave conditions of that evening. Very interesting!