Sad day that day. We lost a couple of surfers here trying to catch some truly big waves here on Lake Michigan. Windchills alone should've killed em. Seas here were 20+ feet.

The Big Fitz had it rough. Tough way to die, drowning in cold dark seas, in a blizzard gale. She was a big 700+ footer downbound after picking up a load of ore in Duluth/Superior. The storm came up fast and she was making full steam. She tried heading for the lee of the north shore, even trying to duck behind Isle Royale, but the winds shifted and she was caught in the fetch of the lake. 20' seas up to 35 footers in an 85mph wind. Lost a couple hatch covers, railing, and both radars. She was sailing blind. She asked the Anderson to be her "eyes". The Anderson was ahead of her about 10 miles, but lost the Fitz on radar about 7pm. The Anderson couldn't raise the USCG for an hour and the Fitz wasn't reported missing for 2 hours because they thought it just lost comms. The Soo locks were closed because the storm, many nav lights were out because of the storm, and radio was sketchy at best. A USCG plane was dispatched from USCG Station Traverse City followed by one of their SAR Seaguard helos, but they didn't get there until 3 hours after they lost contact with the Fitz. No one can survive in that water that long.

Most likely she went down fast with all hands. There was no distress signal. The hero's are the crew of the Anderson. They had made safe harbor when the USCG asked them to turn around and go back out, directly into the gale. Captain Cooper didn't hesitate. The winds came down the full fetch of the lake from NW to SE and it was in the SE part that she went down in 500fow. The waves had the whole lake, 200+ miles to build. Anderson's crew knew this and knew most likely that the Fitz went down. Damn fine men who will do that.

And sadly, that's not the deadliest day on the Great Lakes in November.

"A Republic, if you can keep it." ~ B. Franklin