Loaded with taconite iron-ore pellets bound for a steel mill near Detroit, the 729-foot freighter had left Superior, Wisconsin, the previous afternoon under Captain Ernest McSorley. Caught in near-hurricane-force winds and waves up to 35 feet, she reported a bad list and the loss of both radars. At 7:10 p.m. McSorley radioed, 'We are holding our own.' Shortly afterward she sank in Canadian waters, and no bodies were ever recovered.
When she was launched in 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald was the longest ship on the Great Lakes, and for seventeen years she hauled taconite from the Minnesota Iron Range to mills on the lower lakes, a familiar sight to spectators at the Soo Locks. On the afternoon of November 9, 1975, she sailed from Superior with a full cargo and a crew of 29.
The next day a fierce November gale caught her on open water in eastern Lake Superior. Sometime after 5:30 p.m. she reported being in difficulty, and at 7:10 p.m. McSorley sent his last message. Shortly afterward she went down in 530 feet of water about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay, near Sault Ste. Marie, without sending a distress signal. Why she sank so suddenly, whether through flooding, striking a shoal or being overwhelmed by the waves, is still argued.
The loss might have faded into maritime history but for Gordon Lightfoot, who read a Newsweek account and wrote 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,' a 1976 hit. The sinking also changed Great Lakes shipping, bringing mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems and more frequent vessel inspections.
Key people: Ernest McSorley, Gordon Lightfoot