The Edmund Fitzgerald doesn't sink

[oudi14]

Today is the 40th anniversary of this event, and we've all heard, countless times, Gordon Lightfoot's epic song, 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'. I don't think a TL about this has been done before. In truth, if the ship didn't go down, the butterflies probably wouldn't be too earth shattering. 29 men go on living, some have more children, many might still be alive today, including the 'old' cook, [who was in fact only in his 20s] and the ship would continue moving iron ore from Superior, WS, to mills in Cleveland, or wherever.
So I don't really know where this TL can go, but I thought I would put it out there anyhow, just to mark the anniversary. I always wondered why the captain, who must have known what the waves at the eastern end of Lake Superior would be like, didn't heave-to behind the shelter of the Keewenaw Peninsula, and wait for the storm to die down. But that's a bit like wishing the captain of the El Faro hadn't sailed into the middle of Hurricane Joaquin. Human error.

Any takers?

 

[kichinichini]

The State of Michigan's 7th grade history curriculum loses a week's worth of material. That sounds kind of flippant but it's the only thing I remember from that class (I'm from SW MI) that really dealt with the Upper Peninsula, so maybe the UP feels a little more disconnected from the state? The move we had to watch was pretty moving, and obviously it's far better for those men to live and return to their families.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Butterflies owuld be slight, which is why its so hard to deal with such a minor chang.

Gordon Lightfoot doesn't get his biggest song (His biggest will probably still be 'The Canadian Railroad Trilogy') and he becomes just one more forgettable 70s singer-songwriter.

The ship was nearing the end of its useful life, and the Steel mills the iron ore was being delivered to would be mostly shut down by the mid 80s, so it would probably go to the scrappers by the early 1980s

 

[overoceans]

Gordon Lightfoot doesn't get his biggest song (His biggest will probably still be 'The Canadian Railroad Trilogy') and he becomes just one more forgettable 70s singer-songwriter.

And Maclean And Maclean don't get their 1988 free-trade election parody song.

"The deal was the pride of the American side..."

"Does anyone know where Mulroney's nose goes when American butt he is kissin?'

Not sure if they ever recorded that one; I only saw them do it on a CBC interview, shortly after the election.

 

[mudhead]

Great Lakes Brewing would have a different name for their excellent porter.

I'm not convinced that this is a significant butterfly.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Today is the 40th anniversary of this event, and we've all heard, countless times, Gordon Lightfoot's epic song, 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'.

The song would still exist, it would just have [URL="https://youtu.be/zcfHEABl_Ko?t=1m22s”]different lyrics[/URL].

 

[Mike Stearns]

The ship was nearing the end of its useful life, and the Steel mills the iron ore was being delivered to would be mostly shut down by the mid 80s, so it would probably go to the scrappers by the early 1980s

No she wasn't. Big Fitz was only 17 years at the time of the time of her sinking. By the standards of the Great Lakes she was barely broken in. The Arthur M Anderson, the ship that accompanied the Edmund Fitzgerald down the lake that night was built in 1952 and she's still revenue service. If you want butterfly the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, just have her owners move up the installation of her self-unloading gear.

 

[ejr1963]

I wonder if the captain even could have even made it to shelter in time. I remember that time period (I was in 5th grade at the time, and lived less than a mile from Lake Michigan - in Manitowoc, WI), and we had a lot of very stormy weather that fall season - moreso than usual it seemed (one of those November storms even gave us 18 foot waves [that's a lot onshore for the Great Lakes] and 70 mph winds). Strong storms (like the Edmund Fitzgerald encountered - we also had storms that day), can cause galeforce and higher winds to occur very quickly. When that happens the Great lakes get to be a pretty wild place, even in a ship. I wouldn't be surprised if the Edmund Fitzgerald didn't have much of a chance of survival, due to that occurring - especially if some of the hatches to the cargo hold failed, allowing the water in, to flood the ship (which is one of the popular theories about how the ship sank).

 

[Lost Freeway]

Many of the changes to shipping regulations and practices would not happen.

 

[HARRY]

Due South wouldn't do "32 Down on the Robert Mackenzie" in Mountie on the Bounty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d-t0959C3A

 

[kodak]

The State of Michigan's 7th grade history curriculum loses a week's worth of material. That sounds kind of flippant but it's the only thing I remember from that class (I'm from SW MI) that really dealt with the Upper Peninsula, so maybe the UP feels a little more disconnected from the state? The move we had to watch was pretty moving, and obviously it's far better for those men to live and return to their families.

Clearly you've yet to hear of the one and only Dan Seavey.

 

[1940LaSalle]

The theory about the hatch covers is the official one, and it's not all that widely accepted. More prevalent is a navigational error due to chart errors: specifically, the location of Six Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island. The Canadian and American charts didn't agree on either the location or the extent of the shoal, and neither was accurate in its own right. Hence it didn't take much for McSorley to plot a course for the Fitzgerald that took it over the shoal (as noted by Jesse Cooper, captain of the Arthur B. Anderson, following the Fitz).

Thus, it would have been relatively simple to damage the hull on the shoal, admitting water faster than the pumps could handle. In turn that puts additional stresses on the hull, weakens joints, yields topside damage due to abnormal flexing, and allows the cargo to shift to the point where the vessel could become bow-heavy. That would make it susceptible to large following waves that could send the bow under, yielding a nose dive...which seems to be the consensus, the NTSB notwithstanding, of the sequence of events.

Had both of the Fitzgerald's radars been working, it's possible McSorley might not have ordered the ship to check down, which gives better odds of making Whitefish Bay, and a possible point to beach. As we know that was not the case; McSorley had to rely on Cooper for radar information. Checking down from about 10 mph to about 8 mph doesn't sound like much but had that been avoided, it means gaining another 20 miles over the span of 10 hours: not at all out of the question. And that means beaching the Fitz somewhere around Shelldrake on the western shore of Whitefish Bay. It's not all that hospitable or the most populated territory, but it wouldn't be far from a state highway (M-123) and thus rescue.

 

[New Yorker]

Why no distress call? Doesn't the lack of one support something instantaneous like a rogue wave?

 

[Resurgam]

Why no distress call? Doesn't the lack of one support something instantaneous like a rogue wave?

Captain Cooper of the Anderson claimed he was hit by a massive wave. By his calculation, the wave would have reached the Fitzgerald about fifteen minutes later... which is roughly when the Fitz disappeared from radar.

The end was probably sudden and violent, whatever it was.

 

[fred1451]

Considering that two hundred feet of ship is missing (Well converted into the debris field between it's two halves, I think 'violent and quick' goes with out saying.

 

[Driftless]

There's several causal theories: hatch covers coming undone allowing flooding, rogue/three sisters waves, crossing the shoals, welds breaking loose, taconite cargo shifting, etc. Why not more than one compounding the problems?

My older brother sailed on the ore boats in the years just prior to the sinking of the Fitzgerald and I remember him saying that one stretch of Lake Huron always worried him in late season storms. That part of the lake was shallower, and as a by-product of the shallow bottom, the wave crests seemed to come with shorter separation - just as high, but quicker. For you physicists/engineers out there, does that make sense? Could being close to the Six Fathom Shoals and tall & frequent waves have combined to create the disaster?

 

[Bob in Pittsburgh]

As is often the result of a disaster the sinking of the Fitz lead to numerous safety improvements. Without the sinking these are delayed. As to the causation there can be no question that a combination could have culminated in the sinking. Captain Cooper of the Arthur Anderson which was following the Fitz and talking to them by radio believes that Fitzgerald bottomed and this opened up the hull. Cooper also talked about three high waves that may have pushed the bow under. While not a scientist he was closest to the scene.

 

[Kevin Renner]

A friend of mine has researched this pretty completely. He even wrote a book about it.http://www.amazon.com/Mighty-Fitz-Fitzgerald-Fesler-Lampert-Minnesota/dp/0816680817 (shameless plug). He thinks I was a couple of things. One is the hatch covers. The second is they might of struck bottom. Personally I think the hatch covers re more than enough to explain the sinking. The Fitzgerald left Superior on a Sunday afternoon. McSorely was supposed to be notorius about not wanting to pay overtime. Hence each hatch cover only got every fourth clamp tightened down. The assumption is McSorely was going to get the crew on deck to finish the job Monday morning. But the weather turned ugly. When the wreck was examined (the first or second time, I'm not sure) every fourth clamp was bent and twisted all out of shape. The rest where in good condition. If the ship was working in rough seas and taking water across the deck then I could see water gradually building up in the holds and bilges. It might of been enough to cause her to bottom out around by Caribou Island but people have looked for evidence of a grounding there and haven't found any. The Fitzgerald in many ways just ran out of luck.

As an aside. The city I live in used to be a functioning port. My first wife and I would stop a local watering hole that was frequented by guys off of the freighters. Some of these seamen were regulars because they'd make four or five trips a years. We we a port of entry for VWs. These guys all said they'd rather be caught in a storm in the North Atlantic than the Great Lakes. The seas might not be as big but they were at a higher frequency. Plus they had no where to run for the most part. A couple of years after the Fitz went down a freighter coming into Milwaukee had to anchor off shore due to the weather being so bad they couldnt get into port. Hey wound up getting driven towards shore and going aground. The ship got so beat up it wound up getting scrapped.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=7xEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7149,4416176&hl=en

The last major shipping loss on the Lakes to the best of my knowledge

 

[marathag]

Gordon Lightfoot doesn't get his biggest song (His biggest will probably still be 'The Canadian Railroad Trilogy') and he becomes just one more forgettable 70s singer-songwriter.

Nah, he still had _Sundown_ and _Rainy Day People_ all #1 hits

 

[BlueTrousers]

That part of the lake was shallower, and as a by-product of the shallow bottom, the wave crests seemed to come with shorter separation - just as high, but quicker. For you physicists/engineers out there, does that make sense?

Yes - in shallower water waves tend to 'bunch up' and break more readily.

From an entirely different maritime tradition... the Edmund Fitzgerald isn't particularly special. Bulk carriers sink with monotonous regularity - something like one every two weeks until very recently - often without survivors and rarely with any media attention. They're simply very easy to sink.

Postwar, one laker was going under similar circumstances every decade or so. If the Edmund Fitzgerald doesn't go down, then the regulatory changes don't come in until luck creeps up on some other ship.