Home
Posted By: Teal 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
38 years ago tomorrow.

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hgI8bta-7aw[/video]
Posted By: antlers Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
That's an interesting story. I saw a documentary about that, where they went down and retrieved the ships bell and brought it up. They told the story, and showed graphics, about how the ship actually broke apart in that freak storm. At the end of the show, they rang the actual ships bell 29 times, one for each crewman lost on that ship. One of the better documentary's that I've seen.
Posted By: Ghostinthemachine Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
Posted By: BOWSINGER Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
Great song
Posted By: speedsixman Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
Before I went in the Navy, I worked on those ships 1962 - 1964. I didn't know any of the crew on the "Fitz" personally, but we saw it about once a week somewhere between Detroit and Superior Wisconsin, sometimes within shouting distance.

If you haven't been there, you have no idea of the sheer power of water and the fury that storms can bring to the Lakes.

Myron
Posted By: Teal Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
Originally Posted by speedsixman
Before I went in the Navy, I worked on those ships 1992 - 1994. I didn't know any of the crew on the "Fitz" personally, but we saw it about once a week somewhere between Detroit and Superior Wisconsin, sometimes within shouting distance.

If you haven't been there, you have no idea of the sheer power of water and the fury that storms can bring to the Lakes.

Myron


Guessing that's a typo in the dates as the Fitz was on the bottom 17 years before you would have had a chance to see her?

smile
Posted By: speedsixman Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/09/13
Thanks for catching my brain phart. I was only 30 years off!
I went back and corrected the post.

The ship I worked on at the time was the Paul Carnahan, long since scrapped. Almost all the big ships from that era have been replaced with larger automated ships that take a fraction of the 30-something crews to operate. All self-unloaders instead of the Hulett unloaders that used to be at the unloading ports.

Myron
Posted By: rainierrifleco Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
thanks for that.....
Posted By: wilkeshunter Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
Originally Posted by speedsixman
Before I went in the Navy, I worked on those ships 1962 - 1964. I didn't know any of the crew on the "Fitz" personally, but we saw it about once a week somewhere between Detroit and Superior Wisconsin, sometimes within shouting distance.

If you haven't been there, you have no idea of the sheer power of water and the fury that storms can bring to the Lakes.

Myron


+1. I have been on Lake Michigan and its power is amazing. I have never had the Atlanic scare me like Lake Michigan did.
Posted By: atvalaska Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
cool stuff ...grew up with that story.... I like the "more info" days now ....ends the "wth happen".....
Posted By: smalljawbasser Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
+1 on the big lakes being scary. I've had the bejesus scared out of me on Erie in a bassboat. I didn't unclench for a week!
Posted By: speedsixman Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
I would no more take a bass boat very far out in Lake Erie than flap my arms and try to fly!
I have seen guys out nearly to the islands in one of those, but it would be a cold day in Hades before I tried it. I got one of the worst rides of my life on Erie, and that was on a 730 foot ship!

Myron
Posted By: derby_dude Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
I have a friend of mine that sails a 27 foot boat the weights 14 tons on the Great Lakes and says he does better than power boats on there in a storm although he will seek a safe port if he can in a storm.
Posted By: Mac84 Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
Lake Erie claimed my G-Grandfather and his brother.
Posted By: CharlieFoxtrot Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
Same night the Fitz went down, we had two guys drown off our pier. The pier reaches out about a half mile into the lake ending at the lighthouse. Waves were pushing 10-12' and some high school kids thought it would be cool to walk out there. Waves swept them off. A couple of my buddies were surfing and got one, but the rip kept pulling them out. CG had the 44 footer out there and it was having all it could do just to make way. The Cutter couldn't help as it was too hazardous to be in that close. They called a chopper up from CG station Chicago and the guys on shore were firing off flares for light. The surfers made it back with one guy after an hour and a half. They only recovered a shoe of the other two Darwin Award winners.

Lake Michigan never gave up her dead. She's a lot of fun to play in during the summer, but she can be an angry bitch when she wants to. You have to respect her.
Posted By: ihookem Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/10/13
I don't like Lake Superior and Lake Michigan scares me , I used to fish on it quite a bit. Some say the waves were over 30' high when the the Fitz went down.
Posted By: CharlieFoxtrot Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
We lost a duck hunter today not far from where the Fitz went down. frown

http://www.coastguardnews.com/searc...nter-found-in-munuscong-lake/2013/11/10/

Downstream from the Locks, Munuscong Lake is technically part of the connecting waters of the Great Lakes between Superior and Huron. It's a heavily used migration route for ducks and is usually some pretty good shooting this time of year. It's only 3-6' deep, except for the shipping channel, so it whips up into a frenzy with the 30mph winds we had this weekend. No doubt the Fitz came through here many times on it;s downbound voyages.

May this duck hunter as well as the mariners of the Edmund Fitzgerald rest in eternal peace.
Posted By: gitem_12 Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
God bless those hearty soles

That is one of my favorite songs of all time and one of my favorite stories i thinknif I hadnt taken the career route I did. Some sort of maritime life would have been the way I went
Posted By: speedsixman Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
gitem 12,
"Some sort of maritime life would have been the way I went"

I wish I could remember an old poem, but it starts something like: "Men go down to the sea in ships to tall ships and the sea...."

Where did you grow up?

I grew up on the "North Coast" of Ohio on in a Lake Erie port city, so ships and the water were always part of our lives. My father had sailed for a few years in his younger days so some of that may have rubbed off on me.
I was "invited" to go to work for one of the shipping companies, so took them up on it.
I have always had a fascination for boats and water so that fit right into my mindset for about three years until military service came calling. My very small exposure to a Navy ship was so different from the freighters that I hated it. It seemed that the bullhorn was constantly shouting: "attention on deck - all hands - now hear this....."
I was more than happy to get shore duty in NW Africa for the duration of my service, and I never went back to shipping.

Myron
Posted By: gitem_12 Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
I grew up on the finger lakes. Of NY. But was always drawrn to the chesapeake bay and spent alot of time around Havre Degrace
Posted By: Siskiyous6 Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
http://allpoetry.com/poem/8495913-Sea-Fever-by-John_Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

---------------------------------------------------------------
As Roger Taylor said in response to criticism of his essays, "The Elements of Seamanship", the sea has such power that even consummate seamanship may not be enough.

The song is haunting, and when I find myself with it in my head when I am on the sea, I feel like I am breaking a taboo.

The height of a wave is the least useful part of knowing its danger, period is a far more informative indicator of it's ass kicking potential.

[Linked Image]

I spent five years on the 4,500 ton vessel when she was new and named the R/V Shell America.

[Linked Image]

I bought this Salmon troller in July, a steel 42 footer. First boat I went out to work on back in high school. Well Maintained over the years, I am putting new fuel tanks in her and cleaning up the engine room right now.
Posted By: Seafire Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
Standing on the shores of Lake Superior, especially on the Ontario side where Rte 17 runs right along the Lake, it is not hard to stare out there especially when the wind is blowing and the sky is grey and heavily over cast, and that song just seems to pop up into your head...

pretty darn eerie....

I use to have a 24 Sea Ray Cabin cruiser when I lived back in Minnesota... I had that boat out on Lake Superior once out of Ashland Wisconsin and once our of Grand Marais MN.....

talk about feeling like a note in a bottle....and pretty insignificant....
Posted By: speedsixman Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
siskiyous6, Thanks You!
Yes, that is the poem that I remembered a scrap of, but couldn't remember who wrote it to look it up.

I take it that you are, or were a Merchant Seaman?
That stuff can get in your blood, but it can get badly in the way of family life. We were away from home roughly nine months out of the year, and only had a few hours in port to load or unload. Not only that, but the routes could vary, so the port calls could be different from one trip to the next.

Is your new boat a commercial venture or just a fun boat? Congratulations either way!

Myron
Posted By: speedsixman Re: 11/10/1975 - 11/11/13
gitem_12,
The bay and Havre De Grace are pretty close to where I went to communication school at Bainbridge,(Long since demolished.) It was just up the hill from Fort Deposit if I remember correctly. It was a boot camp for Navy Waves, (although scaled back in size) (females for those that don't know) Some of it had been abandoned for some time before I was there in 1964, but there were some service schools and still some functional barracks.

Myron
© 24hourcampfire