caribou island six fathom shoal

TheFitzgeraldwould have extra steel plates installed between the hull bottom and her keel which would ensure the keel would no loner move freely from the hull and would stay fastened in place. Todays captain, however, has much more accurate and immediate information than did those sailing in 1975, when the Fitzgerald was virtually blind and wallowing in huge seas and heavy winds on its way from Caribou Island to its final resting place. Cooper later said he watched the Edmund Fitzgerald pass far too close to Six Fathom Shoal to the north of Caribou Island. They would later make a turn to the southeast toward Whitefish Point. While conditions were bad, with winds gusting to 50 knots and seas 12 to 16 feet, both captains had often piloted their vessels in similar conditions. The Fitzgerald being the faster took the lead, with the distance between the vessels ranging from 10 to 15 miles. But I have to leave the decision up to you., Ill give it a try, but thats all I can do.. While Northwestern Mutual owned both ships (which woud later prove ironic in theFitzgerald'scase), the freighters were leased out to dedicated shipping companies. There is no conspiracy or disinformation campaign on that fact. Meantime, northwest winds built massive seas from the starboard quarter (right rear), washing powerful waves completely over the deck as the ship left the eastern lee of Caribou Island. Marie in 1967. The debate rages to this day. The official Coast Guard board of inquiry came to the conclusion that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank as a result of massive flooding of the cargo hold, saying that this likely resulted from ineffective hatch closure. Noting that many of the hatch clamps photographed on the sunken freighter show little or no damage or distortion, the report states that this could result from improper maintenance of the adjustment bolts that put tension on the hatch covers and secured them to the top of the coamings around the hatches. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. Whatever the cause, the Fitzgerald took a starboard list as it passed Caribou. Capt. This would have left the crew no way to survive the Edmund Fitzgerald Wreck. "I've often wondered whether these two particular seas might have been the ones that finally did the Fitzgerald in, because they were really huge," he said. Images of the Fitz's 1958 construction and launch. Tweets by @lakesuperiormag !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Affirmative. There is a very good chance that this is what helped lead to her demise. In addition, Coast Guard cited reports of damage to the Fitzgerald's hatches that were planned for winter repair. At 3:30 pm that afternoon, Captain McSorley radioed Captain Cooper and said: Anderson, this is the Fitzgerald. Understandably the footage was edited out of respect for the dead and the families. Already have an account? The Arthur M. Anderson, an ore carrier in the U.S. Steel fleet, had been trailing and providing navigational information to the Fitzgerald because the Fitzs radars had malfunctioned about four hours earlier. The protective visor over the wheelhouse windows has been completely flattened down and there is a lot of similar damage throughout the superstructure of the bow, indicating theEdmund Fitzgeraldmet a very violent and catastrophic end. The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Twenty-nine men were lost when the Fitzgerald went down. Ill give it a try., Do you realize what the conditions are out there?. The bell of the ship is now on display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum as a memorial to her lost crew. The suits are also equipped with flashing lights and radio position beacons. The Western Arctic Herd is one of the largest caribou herds in Alaska and the world. Caribou definition, any of several large, North American deer of the genus Rangifer, related to the reindeer of the Old World. But the Coast Guard called Captain Cooper back at 9:00 pm: Anderson, this is Group Soo. By early the next morning, theAndersonandFitzgeraldencountered a powerful November gale with winds up to 50miles an hour. In fact, the Fitzgerald -- known as a workhorse ship that set numerous cargo hauling records -- was allowed by 1975 to sit a touch over 3 feet deeper in the water when laden with cargo than originally intended when the ship was launched in 1958. USS Indianapolis (CA-35) Gordon Lightfoot liked this theory, posited by the National Transportation Safety Board a year after the Coast Guard issued its report. What was eventually found only included destroyed remains of the ships two lifeboats, life preservers and items from the ship's galleys. Had she sailed two days later, empty, for repairs (very good timing, actually) none of this would have happened. In addition to taking on water after *potentially* hitting bottom near Six fathom Shoals earlier this afternoon, the. There are no more Iron Boats. to which McSorely replied the infamous last words "We are holding our own." It was considered a private hunting preserve through the early 1900s. The Lake Carriers Association disagreed, proposing that the Six Fathom Shoal was the Fitzgerald's undoing. and Johnson, T.C., 1982. Cooper started to fear the worst and contacted the Coast Guard alerting them to theFtizgerald'sdisappearance. The ship broke in half and quickly sank. I have a fence rail down, two vents lost or damaged, and a list. in 1980, Jacques Cousteau's famous Calypso arrived for the first manned dive inside an underwater vessel to the site. The Anderson's captain also made statements in 1986 seemingly supportive of the rogue wave theory. Since one theory is that the ship was damaged by grounding, within two years of the wreck all commercial vessels of 1,600 or more gross tons were required to have equipment that would warn the officers of shallow water beneath the hull. Because of the Great Depression, the island was not restocked and the island was more or less abandoned by the approximately 15 owners-in-common. LAKE SUPERIOR -- Nobody really knows what caused the Edmund Fitzgerald to sink, but that sure hasnt stopped people from trying to solve the mystery. What is your present position?, Were down here, about two miles off Parisienne Island right nowthe wind is northwest forty to forty-five miles here in the bay., Is it calming down at all, do you think?, In the bay it is, but I heard a couple of the salties talking up there, and they wish they hadnt gone out., Do you think there is any possibility and you couldahcome about and go back there and do any searching?, AhGod, I dont knowahthatthat sea out there is tremendously large. The Coast Guard then initiated its search for the missing ship. If theFitzgeraldwere to be dived, then it would be a technical dive as it is over 200 feet. Later, in a videotaped conversation with GLSHS, Captain Cooper said that he always believed McSorley knew something serious had happened to Fitzgerald as the ship passed over Caribou Shoal. And then a song. She would be travelling in tandem with the ore freighter Arthur M. Anderson under command of Captain Bernie Cooperto the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, only about 8090 miles SE. An explanation that has been espoused several times by mariners is that the Fitzgerald suffered a stress fracture and broke apart on the surface from the effects of heavy seas twisting and flexing the hull. ADMINISTRATIVE: Around 3:00 in the afternoon, both ships had passed Caribou Island, Ontario, home of the notorious Six Fathom Shoal, a sharpy rocky outcropping more than capable of tearing into the hull of a deep draft vessel in stormy weather. Her track along the north shore was standard in inclement weather -- to shelter a bit from north winds. Hinze, W.J., Allen, D.J., Fox, A.J., Sunwood, D., Woelk, T. and Green, A.G., 1992. Others overlap in some ways. No. The studio was, yes, indeed, later torn down and replaced by a parking lot. [3][8][9] Samples dredged from a shoal northwest of Caribou Island and close to one of these valleys resemble Jacobsville Sandstone. He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water. Because all 29 men aboard the Fitzgerald went down with the ship -- which was there one minute and gone the next -- the best accounts that investigators could rely on were those of sailors in the vicinity of the ship during the storm, or who had contact with the Fitzgerald somehow in the weeks prior to her final voyage. The Anderson turned out to be the primary vessel in the search, taking the lead. Its likely that they didnt latch a lot of the hatch cover clamps because the crew was on Sunday overtime pay and they were so late getting covered up - and the weather was very nice at that time., Such speculation fits easily into the puzzle of the Fitzgerald tragedy. TheAndersonwasn't in much better shape, its engine room leaking consistently and its superstructure often being submerged entirely under water every time a wave hit. All rights reserved (About Us). This took them between Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula. He again voiced grave concern that the Fitzgerald was missing at 8:32 p.m. Search and rescue efforts started immediately after Coopers second call, but the nearest Coast Guard vessel that could sail in the huge seas was the Woodrush, stationed 300 miles away in Duluth, Minnesota. In 2009, retired naval architect Raymond Ramsey, who helped design the Fitzgerald hull wrote that the maintenance history, increased cargo loading allowances and construction of the Fitzgerald made her unseaworthy the night she went down. But we were talking to him about seven and he said that everything was going fine. After reviewing testimony that Fitzgerald had passed near shoals north of Caribou Island, the USCG Marine Board examined the relevant navigational charts. Again, though, I have to leave that decision up to you as to whether it would be hazarding your vessel or not. He reduced speed to allow the Anderson to close the 17-mile gap between them. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Advance Local. It started as a shipwreck, followed by a newsmagazine story in the still-golden age of newsmagazines like Time, U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek. The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald lies at the bottom of the southeastern portion of Lake Superior in 530 feet of water. Do the math. Tom was also the hunting boating and orv safety instructor. McSorley was forced to rely off reports from the United States Coast guard and the still functional radar of theAndersonto operate through the storm. It's still not completely agreed upon whether the Fitzgerald broke in half on the surface or underwater. She never should have sailed, and could have turned back when "The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound, as a wave broke over the railing." Below is a breakdown of the main theories: Faulty hatch covers caused massive internal flooding. These sedimentary strata overlie an additional 22 kilometers (14mi) of basaltic volcanic strata and mafic intrusions that fill the remainder of the Midcontinental Rift. Whatever prompted that command just a little over an hour before the sinking, Paquette analyzes that it would have been catastrophic and visible from the pilothouse in the darkness of an early November evening. George Stegner recalled last year how he was on duty that night: I was on duty this night. The modification never took place and the patch plates could be seen at the shipyard a couple of years after theFitzgerald'sdemise.TheEdmund Fitzgeralddeparted on what would be her last voyage the afternoon of November 9, 1975 leaving the iron ore docks of Superior, Wisconsin bound for aZug Island steel foundry near Detroit,Michigan. Ernest M. McSorley had loaded her with 26,116 long tons of taconite pellets, made of processed iron ore, heated and rolled into marble-size balls 26,116 long tons more than the great iron boat weighed empty. In 2000, author Hugh Bishop pushed the "Three Sisters" theory about a trio of rogue waves that overwhelmed the Fitzgerald in quick succession. The first one flooded our boat deck. In a similar vein, Paul Hainault, a retired Michigan Tech University professor, postulated a seiche caused the ship to scrape the bottom of Superior Shoal early that morning and the weakened hull eventually gave out. 400 W. Portage Avenue If the ship had "hogged" upon striking the. Caribou Island was considered for an emergency landing airport (YCI) during World War II but it was never built because of the proximity of the twin cities of Sault Ste. Either of these explanations fails to address the fact that the ship had a list, which would not be likely if water were invading the large central cargo hold, but would be if water were leaking into ballast tanks or a tunnel along the side of the hold. As the wise man once said, you can't outlaw stupidity nor legislate morality. Theorists have sized upon the permanent lay-up of the Fitzgerald sister ship, the Arthur Homer, in 1980 as indicative of structural deficiency both vessels. Then the Anderson just raised up and shook herself off of all that water barrooff just like a big dog. Caribou is located on the North Fork Feather River, 9.5 miles (15.3 km) south of Almanor. I've thought for a long long time the keel problem contributed to a major structural failure through years of metal fatigue. One winter, in the 1920s, the caribou walked off the island when the lake froze over. Burgner said a shipyard worker showed him evidence of old keel weld breaks during the 1972-73 winter lay-up that were brought to McSorley and dismissed. For 17 years the Fitzgerald hauled taconite iron ore from the mines of Duluth, MN to Detroit and other Great Lakes ports setting . I was a student of Tom's in 85 7th grade science at Sault jr high. There is absolutely no conclusive evidence to determine the cause of the sinking. Captain Cooper asked McSorley if he had his pumps going, and McSorley said, Yes, both of them.. With mounting apprehension, Captain Cooper called the Coast Guard once again, about 8:00 pm, and firmly expressed his concern for the welfare of the Fitzgerald. There's even a work of Fiction, SCP-1174, titled, and I quote, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Sault Ste Marie, MI 49783 At the time of her launch in 1958, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the largest freighter on the Great Lakes. Dave Sproule, a natural heritage education and marketing specialist with Ontarios Department of Environment, Conservation and Parks Land and Water Division in Sudbury, has written Lake Superior is a weathermaker so big it creates its own weather Proven by: Large holes, Anderson's captain's concern for how close the Fitzgerald was to the shoal, inaccurate charts. Were going to try to contact those saltwater vessels and see if they cant possibly come about and possibly come back alsothings look pretty bad right now; it looks like she may have split apart at the seams like the Morrell did a few years back., Well, thats what I been thinking. The heavy seas overwhelmed a ship that had already lost freeboard and was listing. "He and his officers watched the Fitzgerald pass right over the dangerous area of shallow water," Ley wrote. Photo by user "Greenmars" on Wikimedia Commons. 18335 N. Whitefish Point Road But the ship's owners were insurance men, not mariners, who reconfigured her for even more iron ore. U.S. Coast Guard rescue vessel Woodrush took 21 hours to arrive on scene from the Duluth port. The situation was worsened when McSorely reported to Cooper that his radar was gone.

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