re: The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank 39 years ago

Did they determine that one or more of those deck hatches had gotten washed out, causing it to take on water and break up?

It probably sank inside of a minute if that's the case.

quote:

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Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"

---

That's a beautiful poem. Someone should make a song out of it.

Awesome song. And about 2/3 of it is missing from the OP.

read a few books on this, one of the primary theories is the waves got so high the ship literally smaahsed on the BOTTONM of the lake...hard to imagine a storm that strong...

The song always made it sound like something that happened in the days of yore. I was surprised, when I found out it happened in the mid 70s and the song came out not long afterward.

ETA, Didn't read the thread. funny to see this already addressed. I guess I'm not the only one.

US Coast Guard on Lake Superior must be a very interesting military assignment.

Ship sank in like 500-600' of water, IIRC from reading th wiki page last night.

quote:

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It's called The Rectum of Ella Fitzgerald, or something like that.

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No no no it's the rectum of Edna fits gerbils

Ya, it sank in like 400 feet of water. No way the waves were that big.

I think they figured out one the hatches came off the top and it flooded pretty quickly.

If I remember right, weren't all the hatches intact when the wreckage was found?