The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.. 40 years.

I put back a few of these in memory. RIP sailors

https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/edmund-fitzgerald

 

41 years tomorrow.. Time to rock the Gordon Lightfoot and have a cold one for all those boys.

 

Imagine the force it takes to do this:

 

No doubt. Watch the movie The Finest Hour and it really brings into prospective the force the seas have.

 

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

 

Was Trigglypuff in that boat?

 

at 7 pm a main hatchway caved in...

 

Because of updated forensic analysis, Lightfoot changed this line in the song.

http://gordonlightfoot.com/wreckoftheedmundfitzgerald.shtml#aboutchange

 

Interesting read about why the ship went down...
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-080.htm


Ride safe,
AAron

 

41 years ago. My last winter in Michigan. (Does that make me old ?)

 

Why was I expecting this to be a thread about Dustin ?

 

No disrespect meant by this statement, but other than the 29 lives lost....why is this wreck of such significance, over other boating accidents where lives were lost, to justify a song, movies, yearly rememberance, meauseum exhibits, etc??
Again, I mean absolutely no disrespect or attitude in this question....truly just trying to understand / learn.

 

I think it's mainly due to the mystery of how it disappeared so quickly without a trace or distress call.

That and Gordon Lightfoot's song.

Modern science has apparently answered the questions of how and why it went down, but the song remains.

 

This is the 1970's version of "The Perfect Storm", with this version popularized by a period notable musician.
Twenty nine mariners were lost to a situation that no one would have predicted. The community of commercial mariners operating on the Great Lakes is small, which made it very significant in the community.
It was scheduled as a routine trip transferring a commodity from point to point, on a Very Big Boat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald
The weather went from the almost normal, to Hurricane conditions (record low pressures) in a few hours. This created huge waves, which revealed some flaws in the design and/or build of the VBB.
The crew made some mistakes, not securing every hatch latch IAW SOP. The captain tried to run, and unknowingly steered over uncharted shoals, which magnified the wave energy, further stressing, and possibly damaging the VBB. Post accident analysis revealed that his best option might have been to slow, and steer a conservative course.
These details were (most likely) not known or understood, at the time. Like most accident scenarios the details were not clear to those involved, as the situation developed.
The song reveals their ultimate destiny, creating a dooming scenario for those learning the story through the song.
A romantic tale of the sea, with a tragic twist.

 

The same questions could be asked about The Titanic and The Lusitania.

One is romanticized in the media while the other is mostly consigned to the history books.

 

Titanic was un-sinkable, it sunk. Lusitania was passenger ship sunk by U-boat when we were not at war. The edmund was the largest, most well known boat on the lakes and sank in a memorable storm without a trace for a long time.

 

Actually, it was found 4 days later.