‘Storm of the Century’ Strikes the Great Lakes
Named for the president of the insurance company that commissioned it, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest carrier on the Great Lakes when launched in 1958. A workhorse of the inland seas, the freighter hauled taconite pellets mined in Minnesota to Midwestern steel towns. By 1975, it had logged over a million miles, equivalent to 44 trips around the world.
At its helm stood McSorley, who began his nautical career at age 18 and became the youngest captain on the Great Lakes less than two decades later. McSorley weathered his share of storms during his career, but nothing like the tempest that erupted on the afternoon of November 10, 1975, when a fast-moving arctic front and a warm, wet storm system barreling from the southwest collided over Lake Superior.
McSorley knew the gale warning posted for his final voyage was no trivial matter. Over the previous century, the Great Lakes averaged roughly one shipwreck a week. As many as 25,000 ships rested on the lakes’ murky bottoms, nearly half of them lost in November, when the weather was at its most merciless. “You could be fishing in the morning and fighting for your life by lunch,” says John U. Bacon, author of The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The normally aggressive McSorley proceeded cautiously and followed a more northerly course, where the Canadian highlands dampened the wind. As the ship crossed a treacherous stretch toward the sheltered waters of Michigan’s Whitefish Bay, the storm grew ferocious. The Edmund Fitzgerald, Bacon writes, “found itself at the worst possible place, at the worst possible time.”
Tempest Dooms the 'Edmund Fitzgerald'
Hurricane-force gusts upwards of 100 miles per hour churned 25-foot waves that battered the ore carrier’s broadside for hours. McSorley struggled to see in near-whiteout conditions as the ship sustained significant damage. “I have a bad list, lost both radars and am taking heavy seas over the deck. One of the worst seas I’ve ever been in,” the captain reported over radio. Requiring navigation assistance from the freighter Arthur M. Anderson following behind, the Edmund Fitzgerald slowed down, unwittingly putting itself in the storm’s epicenter.
When the Anderson’s mate radioed the wounded ship around 7 p.m., McSorley replied, “We are holding our own.” “Okay, fine. I’ll be talking to you later,” answered the mate.
The Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared from radar at 7:15 p.m. Repeated messages over the ensuing hours went unanswered. Rescuers found only an oil slick, two empty lifeboats and nearly three dozen unworn life jackets bobbing in the 50-degree water. The freighter rested 530 feet below the surface, broken in two.
Theories on the Ship’s Sudden Disappearance Emerge
A vessel the size of the Edmund Fitzgerald seldom succumbs for a single reason. Although the wreck’s true cause sank to the depths with the ship, several intertwined theories have surfaced.
U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board investigations concluded that massive flooding of the cargo hold through unsecured or damaged hatch closures most likely caused the accident. “Most experts these days dismiss it,” Bacon says. “If the hatch cover did give in, it would have gone down instantly. It would not have taken four or five hours of struggling along the way.”
Another theory points to rogue waves, often more powerful on the Great Lakes than in the open ocean. “Salt water tends to blunt waves and spread them out,” Bacon says. “On the Great Lakes, they’re sharp and pointy like a mountain range, not a roller coaster. And they come twice as fast. So, they’re 10 to 16 seconds apart on the ocean and 4 to 8 seconds apart on the Great Lakes."
The higher frequency of the swells ups the odds of rogue waves forming. It’s likely the embattled crew encountered two or three 54-foot waves and possibly a 60-foot swell. After sustaining repeated body blows, a towering wave could have delivered the knockout punch to an already compromised vessel.
The sheer length and unique design of lake freighters left them prone to structural stress. Bacon points out the Edmund Fitzgerald was “as long as a 73-story skyscraper on its side” but only 75 feet wide. “All these ships are incredibly long and thin,” he says. “You don’t see these ships anywhere else in the world.”
While the design allows these ships to squeeze immense cargoes through the lakes’ narrow lock system, it leaves them vulnerable in rough seas. It’s possible the lengthy Edmund Fitzgerald could have been perched atop one wave at its bow and another at its stern, leaving the heavy midsection unsupported and risking catastrophic structural failure.
Freighter May Have Struck a Shoal
A third possibility is that the Edmund Fitzgerald scraped the shallows near Caribou Island as McSorley unknowingly ran the ship aground. Already navigating an unfamiliar northern route with limited visibility, outdated charts and no radar, McSorley may also have been disoriented by 24 hours without sleep and “motion fatigue” similar to riding a roller coaster for hours on end. The captain of the Arthur M. Anderson reported that on radar McSorley seemed to run directly over Six Fathom Shoal, where depths in some spots drop to just 11 feet.
A top nautical investigator hired by the ship operator’s parent company reportedly told colleagues he discovered scrape marks and the freighter’s distinctive maroon paint on Six Fathom Shoal. The shudder of striking bottom, which could have torn or cracked the ship’s steel hull, might have been undetectable amid the concussive pounding of the waves.
Although the sinking’s precise cause has never been established, the accident sparked an overhaul of radar systems, navigational charts and ship-to-shore communication systems. Since the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, not a single major commercial ship has sunk on the Great Lakes.
