Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio AHOII and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here with us too, and
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know beginning Oh the year
Speaker 1: edition Hainbird here heard Bob? That was great? Was that
Speaker 1: the sweetest chef singing? Gordon Lightfoot? I think it kind
Speaker 1: of nailed it. You totally nailed hey. Before we get going,
Speaker 1: I want to make a quick announcement, very sadly, Emily's
Speaker 1: grandmother Mary, as we referred to her as the the
Speaker 1: general of the stuff you senior general of the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know, Army. I don't like where this is going, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I know she finally passed away about two weeks shy
Speaker 1: of a hundred and two, so, you know, don't feel
Speaker 1: bad about the life short changed. She got every bit
Speaker 1: of it and about a hundred and maybe a half
Speaker 1: of those years were pretty darn good. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: get on my soapbox about you know the fact that
Speaker 1: we live in a state where our loved ones can
Speaker 1: just slowly dwindle into nothingness, which is awful to see happen.
Speaker 1: But uh, we finally lost Mary and it's always sad,
Speaker 1: even though you kind of pre grieve these things, but
Speaker 1: I have. It will be up on Facebook now and
Speaker 1: the Stuff you Should Know Army Facebook page. Something we
Speaker 1: always did for her at her birthday was gave her
Speaker 1: a shout out, and she loved more than anything. Sitting
Speaker 1: around and reading the hundreds of well wishes from all
Speaker 1: over the world just tickled her pink. So we're there's
Speaker 1: an in memorium post up. By the time this will
Speaker 1: come out, I'm gonna get it up there on the
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know Army page via Aaron Cooper somebody.
Speaker 1: So it would be great if people as a as
Speaker 1: a final gesture, I said a couple of words about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well r I p Mary, Yeah, Steph, you should know
Speaker 1: Army general, if not like five star general even maybe
Speaker 1: absolutely it was rough at the end. So it's always
Speaker 1: good to see someone very old that's not doing great
Speaker 1: too to pass along, you know, to go home, that's
Speaker 1: what they call it, once you get to that age,
Speaker 1: going home, like Motley Crue saying that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's what they were talking about. That wasn't Motley Crue.
Speaker 1: Who'saing that? My mom go oh, that was AUSSI yeah,
Speaker 1: but Motley Crewe had one about going home to yeah,
Speaker 1: Home Sweet Home. We saw them play that. I think
Speaker 1: you're thinking of smoking in the boy's room. I was,
Speaker 1: wasn't that thin, Lizzie? No, well originally yeah, I think so. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go. I'm a O G. Speaking of O
Speaker 1: G s Chuck, I feel like we should talk about
Speaker 1: one of the O G Iron freighters of all time
Speaker 1: that met a tragic end, and it was called the
Speaker 1: Edmund Fitzgerald. And I just want to say, I promise
Speaker 1: for the rest of the year my segways will be
Speaker 1: much better than that. Well, I hit everyone with an
Speaker 1: obituary right out of the gate. It's true. I think
Speaker 1: you did a pretty good job. Um here's how dumb
Speaker 1: I am. I knew about the song because it's a
Speaker 1: song I hate more than almost any other song. Why
Speaker 1: it's terrible? Why no, it's not what about it's terrible?
Speaker 1: You know? Like folk stuff? I love folk music. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of sea shanties, and this is
Speaker 1: a classic. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon
Speaker 1: Lightfoot is a classic sea shanty because they don't have like,
Speaker 1: they don't have a chorus. They don't have a hook,
Speaker 1: they're not written for that purpose. It's just sort of
Speaker 1: this repetitive thing, over and over, take me to the bridge.
Speaker 1: There's no bridge, there's no nothing but that repeated Swedish
Speaker 1: chef bit that I did. So I knew about the song,
Speaker 1: but I never looked closely at the lyrics, um because
Speaker 1: I hate it so much. So I so dumb. I
Speaker 1: always thought that Edmund Fitzgerald was like the Titanic or
Speaker 1: some classic old ocean liner from like the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: or something. I did not know that it was a
Speaker 1: a you know, fairly modern day uh like metal or
Speaker 1: shipping vessel. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. It was
Speaker 1: a Great Lakes vessel. Didn't know that. I thought it
Speaker 1: was probably like nineteen ten or something. Yeah. No, it's
Speaker 1: sunk in nineteen seventy five. And it wasn't even a
Speaker 1: twinkle in a um shipmaker's I in nineteen ten. It
Speaker 1: wasn't created until I think nineteen fifty eight was when
Speaker 1: it was finally launched, so it was fairly recent. I
Speaker 1: would say. Yeah, And to my uh defense, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: defend myself here because you're not stepping up, uh, when
Speaker 1: you raised in Atlanta, you don't like the shipwrecks of
Speaker 1: the Midwest of the early seventies. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: not something that a kid really learned. So okay, So
Speaker 1: the reason I wasn't stepping up was because that it
Speaker 1: is what kids learned. When you grow up in Toledo
Speaker 1: or Detroit or Cleveland, you probably did right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was raised knowing about the Edmund Fitzgerald anything about it,
Speaker 1: And I didn't have a seagoing member in my entire family,
Speaker 1: and my whole family knew about the Edmund Fitzgerald for
Speaker 1: some reason. Because if you sit down and look at
Speaker 1: it on paper, uh, you you will wonder why it
Speaker 1: actually you know, it was a very famous shipwreck, and
Speaker 1: there was some some things to it. There was a
Speaker 1: huge ship. It was a very beloved ship before it saying,
Speaker 1: so there were a couple of things that could make it,
Speaker 1: you know, memorialized a little more than the average shipwreck.
Speaker 1: But it is at least around the Great Lakes region,
Speaker 1: it is second only to Titanic as far as shipwrecks
Speaker 1: of import go. Like that is how big the Edmund
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald shipwreck was around there and still is I think
Speaker 1: to this day, and they love that song up there too.
Speaker 1: I know that for a fact. So I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: people who hated out there though too, that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are mad at me. Yeah. He Gordon Lightfoot,
Speaker 1: the guy who's who sang the song. He was known
Speaker 1: as like the Pride of Canada. I think I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's still around or not, but he was
Speaker 1: definitely a beloved songwriter. So we definitely have lost a
Speaker 1: few Canadian fans. Things to you, I like Gordon Lightfoot.
Speaker 1: I liked that other big hit he had, which one?
Speaker 1: What was it? I saw that there was another hit
Speaker 1: and I could not figure out what it was. Didn't
Speaker 1: he sing? Uh Sunday b b d DP dude, dude
Speaker 1: to see about even be yes, I don't know if
Speaker 1: that was him. I know the song you're talking about,
Speaker 1: then that's that's a great song. I agree, clearly don't
Speaker 1: know these lyrics. So let's let's get into this, okay,
Speaker 1: because there's probably plenty of people outside of the United States,
Speaker 1: outside of the northern Midwest, UM and Northeast, who haven't
Speaker 1: really heard much about the Edmund Fitzgerald if at all.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Edmund Fitzgerald. Shall we sure, uh?
Speaker 1: And you know, I kind of gave away a little
Speaker 1: bit of the story and when I said it was
Speaker 1: it carried metal ores, specifically iron ore. They found a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff in the eighteen hundreds in Ontario
Speaker 1: and Canada and Wisconsin and Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula
Speaker 1: of Michigan, and so all of a sudden an industry
Speaker 1: was born where these great lakes all of a sudden
Speaker 1: saw these big ships and they were like, hey, we
Speaker 1: got these uh, this iron ore. We're gonna ship it
Speaker 1: in the form of Taco nite pellets all over the
Speaker 1: Midwest to wherever they need steel. And it was so
Speaker 1: lucrative that other companies got in the game because they
Speaker 1: were like, hey, you can invest in the ship. You don't.
Speaker 1: You have to be in that business and you can
Speaker 1: make tons of money. And that's what happened with the
Speaker 1: Eddie fitz Yeah, because the Edmund Fitzgerald was owned by
Speaker 1: Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company. Weird, and there's no like,
Speaker 1: whoa wait a minute, what's the catch here? There is none.
Speaker 1: Northwestern Mutual UH commissioned a ship builders on Lake erie
Speaker 1: Um to build a design and build a ship for
Speaker 1: them for the purpose of of transporting or across the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes, just as an investment. Yeah. And one of
Speaker 1: the one of the reasons why it became such a
Speaker 1: attractive investment for for anybody, including an insurance company, was
Speaker 1: that the St. Lourd's Seaway was opened, I believe in
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, and at that point the Great Lakes were
Speaker 1: connected to the Atlantic Ocean, so now you had even
Speaker 1: more of a market to export to your iron ore too.
Speaker 1: So um, it wasn't a bad idea, and there was
Speaker 1: really nothing wrong with their ownership from top to bottom.
Speaker 1: From what I could tell. It wasn't like some insurance scam. No,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. As a matter of fact, it
Speaker 1: would have been pretty audacious to have named the ship
Speaker 1: after the president of Northwestern Mutual if the whole thing
Speaker 1: was a scam. You know that's men Fitzgerald was right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, And apparently the legend goes Edmund Fitzgerald, the
Speaker 1: president of the insurance company, did not want the ship
Speaker 1: named after him. I could not see why, but at
Speaker 1: a board meeting he excused himself to go to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: and the board voted and went ahead and overruled him
Speaker 1: and named it after him. Anyway, as the legend goes,
Speaker 1: it was, he was probably just uh, sort of demurring
Speaker 1: and being like, Hey, I'm gonna step out, but make
Speaker 1: sure this happens. Oh I heard when he came back
Speaker 1: he went and bonkers and broke some chairs and the
Speaker 1: water pictures. Now, he seems like a pretty mild bannerd
Speaker 1: guy from what I could tell. Sure to have a
Speaker 1: ship named after you. Uh So, should we go over
Speaker 1: a little bit of the nuts and bolts of the
Speaker 1: or I guess not really bolts, because you'll soon learn
Speaker 1: this thing was welded man. That was chef's kiss of
Speaker 1: the Eddie fits the s s. Edmond Fitzgerald was seven
Speaker 1: ft long thirty nine ft tall from the top of
Speaker 1: the keel to the bottom of the deck, and had
Speaker 1: three and this you know, some of this stuff you'll
Speaker 1: you want to put a pin in. Um had three
Speaker 1: cargo holds that were separated by bulkheads or they're called
Speaker 1: screen bulkheads. In other words, they're they're not watertight. So
Speaker 1: if water comes in one of these cargo holds and
Speaker 1: fills up enough, it's or tilts a certain way, it
Speaker 1: can go into the other cargo holds and you know
Speaker 1: there's three of them, and if they you know, it's
Speaker 1: just bad news if something starts filling up. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't like a weird design screen bulkheads or it wasn't
Speaker 1: a weird thing. No, because this ship was designed and
Speaker 1: built to sail on the Great Lakes. It wasn't intended
Speaker 1: to be an ocean going ship. Um. And on the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes, yeah, I think get some pretty bad weather
Speaker 1: from time to time, specifically in November. Apparently. Um, it's
Speaker 1: nothing like an Atlantic storm or even a Pacific storm,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. UM. So yeah, it's not very weird that
Speaker 1: it was built like that. Um. It was also designed
Speaker 1: to hold up to third thousand tons tons of tack
Speaker 1: knite pellets. Um. Normally it would handle something around twenty
Speaker 1: six thousand, but it could. It kept getting rated. The
Speaker 1: company kept going to the Coastguard and saying, it can
Speaker 1: hold more, it can hold more, and the Coastguard kept
Speaker 1: signing off on increasing the load limits to up to
Speaker 1: I think about thirty thousand tons at one point. Um.
Speaker 1: And again this is not this is not unheard of.
Speaker 1: It's not super weird. Um. But the Edmund Fitzgerald was
Speaker 1: like known as a record breaker, and usually it broke
Speaker 1: its own records. So it was a very well known, beloved,
Speaker 1: well thought of ship on on the Great Lakes. That's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned that it was welded. Most ships at
Speaker 1: the time, and I think still most ships are riveted
Speaker 1: because you know, welding. Welding is great, but welding doesn't
Speaker 1: hold up like rivets hold up. But again, this was
Speaker 1: a ship for the Great Lakes. Uh. It was launched
Speaker 1: without even being finished completely. It's not like they had
Speaker 1: big holes in the bottom or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: they it was like, wait, white, we forgot to put
Speaker 1: in the plug, which I've forgotten actually on a boat before. Um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's no good water comes in. Is that where the
Speaker 1: rope trauma came from? But all right, you're getting closer. Awesome, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're getting there. That's a big hint. So they had
Speaker 1: these um this was sort of unusual for a ship
Speaker 1: like this, for an ore shipping ship. Um. They had
Speaker 1: a really sort of styled out pilot house and crew
Speaker 1: quarters and mess area because and this is the stuff
Speaker 1: that wasn't quite finished when they launched. Because this insurance
Speaker 1: company owned it. They kind of it was a bit
Speaker 1: of a feather in their cap to own this at
Speaker 1: the time largest ship on the Great Lakes. I think
Speaker 1: for about a year or so it was the largest one.
Speaker 1: And wait, I have something about that, Chuck. The ship
Speaker 1: that overtook it the next year was one foot longer.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't that just dry view bananas? Yeah, that's clearly on purpose,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, definitely. Although I'm looking now, the Edmund
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald was nine ft long. Maybe they should have just
Speaker 1: surrounded that off. I don't Yeah, I don't know why
Speaker 1: they did that. Maybe they were like, well, that's how
Speaker 1: how much iron we have to build this kind of
Speaker 1: asking for that extra foot though, you know, I guess so.
Speaker 1: But they could have made it two ft bigger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's any ten feet bigger, he knows, but one foot
Speaker 1: that is a thumb in the I I think. Uh So.
Speaker 1: The long and the short of it is these insurance
Speaker 1: executives were super proud of this ship. They thought it
Speaker 1: was kind of cool and they like to go out
Speaker 1: on it and like right along on these runs. So
Speaker 1: that's why they had sort of extra nice accommodations for
Speaker 1: the ship. That was kind of I mean the welding
Speaker 1: design was I don't want to say weird, but it
Speaker 1: was definitely not UM what they usually did. But again
Speaker 1: it wasn't like some big red flag, No, I was
Speaker 1: like an accepted way to build a ship. From what
Speaker 1: I could tell, Yeah, those executives would go out on
Speaker 1: these voyages because the UM Edmund Fitzgerald was so fast.
Speaker 1: One of his nicknames was the Toledo Express because it
Speaker 1: could make it from Duluth, Minnesota to Toledo, Ohio and
Speaker 1: back in five days. So if you were an executive
Speaker 1: could just basically go for a couple of day voyage
Speaker 1: and you would be eating like lobster and steak from
Speaker 1: what I understand, like they were styled out for sure.
Speaker 1: So it's a really fast ship. It could hold a
Speaker 1: lot of ore. Uh. There were frequently insurance executives partying
Speaker 1: on it. It was. It was again a well regarded
Speaker 1: ship on the Great Lakes. I can't stress that enough.
Speaker 1: It was very well regarded long before the song. So
Speaker 1: these uh. One thing we do mention uh that you
Speaker 1: should also put a pin in is hatch clamps. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had those three cargo holes and in order to
Speaker 1: load the iron ore into the cargo holes. They had
Speaker 1: twenty one hatch innings I guess seven apiece and they
Speaker 1: were very very large hatch openings eleven ft by forty
Speaker 1: eight feet and the doors were made of a single
Speaker 1: steel slab and they had a rubber gasket to keep
Speaker 1: it watertight. But there were sixty eight clamps per hatch
Speaker 1: and you had to manually like crank these things down.
Speaker 1: So every time you're loading unloading these things, that's almost
Speaker 1: fire clamps that have to be engaged by human power.
Speaker 1: And we say that because apparently when uh the day
Speaker 1: of the Faithful Voyage, it was reported that they don't
Speaker 1: think all those hatches were completely down and if like
Speaker 1: the weather was really good, it sounds like they did
Speaker 1: that kind of thing where you're like building ikea furniture,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't need all eight screws. I
Speaker 1: can probably just get by with the three, right. I've
Speaker 1: seen both. So this is a really big point of
Speaker 1: contention because it it either places the blame on the
Speaker 1: crew for their fate or unfairly places the blame on
Speaker 1: the crew for their face. UM it does seem like
Speaker 1: it was totally within the role of possibility that UM
Speaker 1: under fair Weather. The captain of an iron carrier or
Speaker 1: carrier um would have set sail without all the clamps done,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't have been like just forget, let's go
Speaker 1: watch some MTV. They would still they would just be
Speaker 1: putting the clamps on while they were setting safe that
Speaker 1: then then they would finish as they were making their
Speaker 1: way out to sea. So it's possible that they did
Speaker 1: leave port that day, I think November nine, Sunday, November
Speaker 1: without all of their clamps hatched um or all of
Speaker 1: their hatches clamped, But that doesn't mean that they weren't
Speaker 1: clamped within the next couple hours exactly. One other thing
Speaker 1: we'll mention before we go to break is that, uh
Speaker 1: and this this kind of is somewhat noteworthy. A lot
Speaker 1: of times you'll have if you're building a ship, you
Speaker 1: build a couple of them because you're already building that,
Speaker 1: we might as well build another one. And that's called
Speaker 1: a sister ship, and it means it's the ship of
Speaker 1: basically the same design and materials that you're just knocking
Speaker 1: out in tandem. And even though the Eddie Fits did
Speaker 1: not have a an actual true sister ship, there was
Speaker 1: the Arthur B. Homer that was built at the same
Speaker 1: shipyard about a year later, and they were designed very similarly.
Speaker 1: And we bring this up because it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where, you know, if you look at the sinking
Speaker 1: of a ship, you might look at the sister ship
Speaker 1: and say, well, we're their design flaws, like why didn't
Speaker 1: this one sink? If this one didn't sink? And the
Speaker 1: Homer never had any problems it. It fared well until
Speaker 1: when it was uh scrapped and out of service. But
Speaker 1: it will come up a couple of times here and there. Okay,
Speaker 1: nice set up, man, I think it is bring time.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do it, so Chuck, I think I
Speaker 1: don't know if he was the original captain, he was
Speaker 1: certainly probably one of the most well known captains of
Speaker 1: the Edmund Fitzgerald, the guy named Peter Pulser, and he
Speaker 1: was well known for going through these locks, like this
Speaker 1: ship was designed to just barely squeeze through the locks,
Speaker 1: so it was an enormous thing to see um coming, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you could reach out and touch it basically
Speaker 1: as it was going through the locks. And then to
Speaker 1: make it even more impressive, Captain Pulser would alternately play
Speaker 1: music from speakers to basically give everybody a show. Well,
Speaker 1: the Edmund Fitzgerald was going through the locks, or he
Speaker 1: would use a bullhorn to shout facts about how amazing
Speaker 1: the ship was. Yeah, he was pretty cool. He was
Speaker 1: not the ofen when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down instead. Uh,
Speaker 1: that captain was Ernest m McSorley. And much like the
Speaker 1: Edmund Fitzgerald, McSorley was well regarded on the lakes as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and McSorley was sort of known, as we'll see later
Speaker 1: as someone who would kind of kind of go through
Speaker 1: a storm if at all possible. Um. It didn't seem
Speaker 1: like he was reckless or anything like that or would
Speaker 1: you know, relish in putting his crew in danger. But
Speaker 1: there were, you know, there were times where certain boats
Speaker 1: would pull back and say, hey, maybe we should wait
Speaker 1: this one out. The other boats would push through, and
Speaker 1: he seemed to be the kind of captain that would
Speaker 1: generally try and push through. Yeah. So, um, if there
Speaker 1: was a faithful day in the history of the Edmund Fitzgerald,
Speaker 1: it was Sunday, November because that was when the fits
Speaker 1: the Toledo Express set sail from Superior, Wisconsin, carrying twenty
Speaker 1: six thousand, one hundred and sixteen tons of aconite pellets.
Speaker 1: And I did some math, pretty sure it's right here
Speaker 1: we go. But that's fifty eight and a half million
Speaker 1: pounds of muskeet sized pellets of iron ore, or for
Speaker 1: our friends outside of the Imperial System world, twenty six
Speaker 1: point five million kilograms. That's a lot. And add on
Speaker 1: to that fifty gallons of fuel oil. Ye, that that's
Speaker 1: a lot of weight itself. So but it wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: technically overloaded. It's just it was well loaded, yes, And
Speaker 1: it left it set sail at two fifteen in the
Speaker 1: afternoon for Zug Island in Lake Michigan, and I was like,
Speaker 1: Zug Island, Zug Island, it's off off Detroit. But I
Speaker 1: was like, but that's not what I know it from.
Speaker 1: And then I remembered, do you remember our episode on
Speaker 1: the humm people can just hear some people here at
Speaker 1: home and it drives them crazy. Well, there's a windsor hum,
Speaker 1: and I remember they associated with Zug Island, and I
Speaker 1: looked it up and it turns out that during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: uh U s Steel Company, who had a steel plant
Speaker 1: on Zug Island UM basically shuttered their operations just for
Speaker 1: do due to lack of um um availability of raw materials, right,
Speaker 1: and the HUM vanished. That's right. So they figured it out.
Speaker 1: It was US Steel, one of their one of their
Speaker 1: UM components of their whole setup. Like that I knew too.
Speaker 1: I thought it was definitely worth mentioning. All right. So
Speaker 1: they're headed towards that island, which is in Lake Michigan.
Speaker 1: H Like you said, it was two fifteen, About two
Speaker 1: hours and fifteen minutes later, at four thirty, the s
Speaker 1: s Arthur M. Anderson set sail from Minnesota headed to Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 1: And they're going to two different places, but they took
Speaker 1: a similar route, which we'll talk about why here in
Speaker 1: a minute. UM. But uh, the sort of again along
Speaker 1: on the short of this is that there was another boat,
Speaker 1: another ship nearby kind of for this whole route, and
Speaker 1: nearby meaning under twenty miles and sometimes even as close
Speaker 1: as like twelve to fifteen miles away, which is which
Speaker 1: is not tailgating someone, but as pretty close as far
Speaker 1: as ship travel goes. Yeah, I mean they could keep
Speaker 1: their their lights in sight the whole time. Basically, UM,
Speaker 1: and the Anderson would end up basically being like the
Speaker 1: the hero of the story. UM. So we just keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. So, UM, a couple of things about
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes themselves. Like I said, UM, ships designed
Speaker 1: to travel the Great Lakes are probably not quite as
Speaker 1: as hardy as a sea going vessel, but they're still
Speaker 1: pretty tough because the Great Lakes has some pretty bad weather,
Speaker 1: particularly in November. UM. And when storms start blowing across
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes in November, the sailors up there called
Speaker 1: the Witch of November, and usually November is the end
Speaker 1: of the season. They'll have their last runs of the
Speaker 1: year in November, try to get as much shipping in
Speaker 1: as they can before the weather turns. And when the
Speaker 1: weather turns, it really really turns, especially on Lake Superior,
Speaker 1: because Lake Superior is huge and long, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of room for that wind to blow un unobstructed
Speaker 1: across the lake and really pick up some steam. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, we've we've talked about this in our hurricane
Speaker 1: episodes and tsunami episodes. Anytime you have long stretches of
Speaker 1: water that a storm is riding across is gonna pick
Speaker 1: up energy from that water and moisture and wind is
Speaker 1: going to create bigger and bigger waves. I think we
Speaker 1: did one on rogue waves, which is really cool. And
Speaker 1: this large stretch of Lake Superior was uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the most well traveled area. And and it
Speaker 1: seems like at least at the time, Lake Superior itself,
Speaker 1: despite being h massively huge, was one of the least
Speaker 1: traveled of the Great Lakes, at least as far as
Speaker 1: these shipping lines go. Yeah. I guess just because there
Speaker 1: were there was more action on the other Great Lakes maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Think only about three hundred and fifty shipwrecks uh in
Speaker 1: Lake Superior out of the and we saw different numbers.
Speaker 1: I think six thousand is what most people around. Six
Speaker 1: thousand shipwrecks and all the Great Lakes, I saw a
Speaker 1: size ten, but I think it might depend on that
Speaker 1: might be like all boats or something. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure either. I definitely saw both um, but
Speaker 1: still that's a pretty low ratio UM. And it's because
Speaker 1: it's just not quite as traveled. Um. It's in addition
Speaker 1: to being huge and wide, it's also really deep. I
Speaker 1: saw somewhere that it's about feet deep, but it's at
Speaker 1: this point it's also extremely cold. Where on the lake
Speaker 1: bottom a few hundred feet down, um, there's there's basically
Speaker 1: no aerobic um life down there. It's it's just devoid
Speaker 1: of It's like basically a freezer. It hovers at about
Speaker 1: thirty two thirty three degrees just above freezing um or wait,
Speaker 1: zero degrees is just above freezing, but still it's really
Speaker 1: really cold. Thirty two degrees is um and so anybody
Speaker 1: who falls in the water is going to catch hypothermia
Speaker 1: pretty fast. It's just one of the parts of the
Speaker 1: lake like it's always cold basically year round. You just
Speaker 1: have to know that about it, all right. So I
Speaker 1: think that's a great setup for what's going on. What
Speaker 1: these lakes look like. It sounds like I'm going to break,
Speaker 1: but we just did that. So they they set out
Speaker 1: the Anderson and the Fitzgerald, and they decide because of
Speaker 1: this weather coming in, I believe the most dangerous weather
Speaker 1: there at Superior comes from the northwest. North by northwest,
Speaker 1: is that right? So they decide, all right, this weather
Speaker 1: is coming, We're gonna take what they you know, people
Speaker 1: that sail that area jokingly called the scenic Route, which
Speaker 1: was basically two to try and stay as far away
Speaker 1: from the meat of this storm as possible, and it
Speaker 1: would take a little bit longer, but it was supposedly
Speaker 1: a safer route if you have bad weather coming in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as we'll see, it would be a very fateful decision.
Speaker 1: And this was a this happened to be a voyage
Speaker 1: chuck full of fateful decisions. But that scenic route, and
Speaker 1: they purposely took the scenic route because the weather was
Speaker 1: supposed to be bad. I think they left at two
Speaker 1: thirty pm and by seven pm there was a gale
Speaker 1: warning for the entire lake. So that's a big storm.
Speaker 1: I think this one actually came up from Oklahoma, they said,
Speaker 1: across the plains, hit the lake and just started messing
Speaker 1: things up. Um, So they took this northern route to
Speaker 1: try to stay away from the weather as much as possible.
Speaker 1: But like you said, McSorley was known as a heavy
Speaker 1: weather captain, so he was definitely the type to push ahead.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the only one to push ahead through this
Speaker 1: this storm. There were plenty of others the Arthur Anderson
Speaker 1: among others, who were just making their way through the
Speaker 1: storm because they had ships they believed in. But they
Speaker 1: also passed a handful of different places where they could
Speaker 1: have stopped and waited out the storm in safety, and didn't.
Speaker 1: They pressed on another handful of fateful decisions. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you can like pull behind an island or sneak into
Speaker 1: a bay or something like that and ride it up
Speaker 1: for a little while. Uh. Instead they traveled along that
Speaker 1: north shore and then made about a seventy degree right
Speaker 1: turn down the eastern shore toward Whitefish Bay. And this
Speaker 1: is where, like, if you got to Whitefish Bay, then
Speaker 1: you were kind of in a safety zone even if
Speaker 1: it was bad weather. Uh. And then that would like
Speaker 1: kind of send you on to what's called the Sioux
Speaker 1: Locks s o O. But in order to get there,
Speaker 1: they had to cross a big stretch of open water
Speaker 1: with all this weather hitting them broadside. It was a
Speaker 1: sort of a dangerous sprint to try and get to
Speaker 1: Whitefish Bay. And the weather started getting worse and worse
Speaker 1: throughout the day and they went past. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: looked this up too, so I hope I get it right, Uh,
Speaker 1: MITCHI Pecotton Island very nice, and that was where you know,
Speaker 1: they could potentially find some safe harbor there. But they
Speaker 1: didn't stop there. They just kept going. Yeah, they kept going,
Speaker 1: and that was probably the last place that they could
Speaker 1: have stopped. Um. There was another small island called Cariboo Island,
Speaker 1: and if you look at it on the map, you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that would help very much. So, um,
Speaker 1: Mitch Pecoten Island is probably the last chance that they had.
Speaker 1: And again MC's oiley said, no, we can make it.
Speaker 1: But when they made that right hand turn um and
Speaker 1: started heading along parallel to basically the eastern shore, the
Speaker 1: weather that hit the far western shore of Lake Superior
Speaker 1: could have made a straight line right to them unobstructed.
Speaker 1: So they were turning um their side, the weakest part
Speaker 1: of their ship into the worst weather of the storm
Speaker 1: that had picked up in the worst month for storms
Speaker 1: of any given year. Um, that's what they did when
Speaker 1: they took that right turn. Uh. So MC sorley radios
Speaker 1: at three thirty the other ship that Anderson and says
Speaker 1: a few things that we're going to break down here
Speaker 1: says I have a fence rail down. I've lost a
Speaker 1: couple of events and have a list. So the fence
Speaker 1: rail is what you think it is, and it's held
Speaker 1: up by cable. Um, you know, going along the perimeter
Speaker 1: of the deck, and we don't know exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: There are a few theories it could have just snapped
Speaker 1: because the the ship might have been flexing at this
Speaker 1: point along its length, and this is where if a
Speaker 1: boat is riveted, it's going to be a little stronger.
Speaker 1: If the ship is twisting, then if you have it welded,
Speaker 1: like a weld could break loose and not hold. Uh.
Speaker 1: Rivet is supposed to hold. That's why they make, you know,
Speaker 1: big ships and jumbo jets out of them, right, And
Speaker 1: it's too basically put up with a certain amount of
Speaker 1: flex right, Yeah, absolutely, like you can. For my understanding,
Speaker 1: like if you lose a rivet, it's not the same
Speaker 1: thing as like breaking a weld, right, yeah, same same here.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's correct. So the the upshot of
Speaker 1: it is if they lost their fence rail because a
Speaker 1: wave took it off, that's one thing. But if they
Speaker 1: lost their fence rail because the ship flexed so much
Speaker 1: that it popped off, that's a different thing, especially for
Speaker 1: a welded ship. So we don't exactly know what happened
Speaker 1: with that, but it was enough that MIxS Ortley mentioned
Speaker 1: it and Again, this is a seasoned veteran Great Lakes
Speaker 1: pilot Um and anything he mentions or doesn't mention is
Speaker 1: significant in retrospect. So he mentions that he mentioned the
Speaker 1: vents being gone UM, and the vents were used to
Speaker 1: maintain air pressure in the hold, so they might be
Speaker 1: open a little bit, closed a little bit depending on
Speaker 1: what was in there, how empty it was UM and
Speaker 1: that also was to keep the ship intact um in
Speaker 1: an event, being gone means that there was now a
Speaker 1: hole in the deck where water could slash in, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't enough that it was going to sink the ship.
Speaker 1: But again that was worth mentioning by Mick Sorley. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the last thing you mentioned is that I
Speaker 1: have a list uh. And in shipping, that doesn't mean,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, go buy milk and take out the trash.
Speaker 1: That means that the boat is tilting to one side.
Speaker 1: And that's definitely not a good thing because that means
Speaker 1: there's probably water somewhere in the hold, like and maybe
Speaker 1: one of those cargo holds, and it's not evenly distributed.
Speaker 1: So your your boat is is catti wamp us. Right,
Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it. So that was
Speaker 1: what do you say, three thirty pm? Right, That's when
Speaker 1: he radioed, yeah, okay, so, um, and this was November ten.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if we said they set sail on
Speaker 1: November nine, and this is now about twenty four hours
Speaker 1: later after they've gone underway, So this is three thirty
Speaker 1: on November ten, and they're still making their way. McSorley
Speaker 1: told Anderson that, um, I'm concerned enough that I'm going
Speaker 1: to slow down to let you catch up, just so
Speaker 1: you can be a little closer in case something happens.
Speaker 1: That's significant. That's that he's saying, like I need the
Speaker 1: help of another ship or I just want to have
Speaker 1: another ship around for safety. And then also he may
Speaker 1: him that his pumps were running. He apparently said both pumps,
Speaker 1: which is quizzical because they had six pumps on board.
Speaker 1: They had to two thousand gallon per minute auxiliary pumps.
Speaker 1: Just stop and think about that for a second. Then
Speaker 1: they had four seven thousand gallon per minute pumps, so
Speaker 1: if you put them all together, that ship could pump
Speaker 1: out thirty two thousand gallons of water per minute with
Speaker 1: its pumps. And he had at least a couple of
Speaker 1: them running. So he knew that he had been taking
Speaker 1: on water. I just get the impression he didn't know
Speaker 1: how much, al right. So less than one hour from
Speaker 1: that point, Fitzgerald radios again to the Anderson and said,
Speaker 1: I I've lost both of the radar units. And this
Speaker 1: just sort of presumed that it was probably just from
Speaker 1: these big waves crashing over and smashing them. And he said,
Speaker 1: will you please stay close to at this point because
Speaker 1: we were gonna need some navigational assistance. We need you
Speaker 1: close by. Things are getting really rough out here. I'm
Speaker 1: sure the Anderson was like, no, kidding, like we're in
Speaker 1: this storm too, but you know, Acquiesced stayed within fifteen
Speaker 1: miles of the Fitzgerald and as they were headed toward
Speaker 1: Whitefish Point, Um, the points radio beacon wasn't working. This
Speaker 1: was later confirmed that it wasn't working, and there was
Speaker 1: a ship another ship nearby called the It was a
Speaker 1: Swedish ship called the A Before and Fits called them
Speaker 1: said hey, I hear there's no radio beacon at the
Speaker 1: point at Whitefish Point Um, but is the is the
Speaker 1: white House still operating? And oh yeah, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: So apparently the lighthouse is still working. But the radio
Speaker 1: beacon wasn't. And then the other thing mcsureley very key
Speaker 1: told the a before was I've got a bad list
Speaker 1: and these are the worst seas I've ever experienced. And
Speaker 1: then on a hot mic was heard saying don't allow
Speaker 1: nobody on deck. So all of the crew at this
Speaker 1: point is like sheltering and working. Yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I think sheltering as much as anything. It had a
Speaker 1: bad list. It was getting battered by waves that I
Speaker 1: think that Anderson later reported were up to ft and
Speaker 1: it was taking on water to some degree or another.
Speaker 1: We just don't know. Seven ten pm, so this is
Speaker 1: this is this. The first time he radioed the Anderson
Speaker 1: saying we got some problems was two thirty. They've you know,
Speaker 1: made it, made their way all the way along to
Speaker 1: seven ten pm, and the Anderson this time got in
Speaker 1: touch with the Edmn Fitzgerald and said, hey, there's another
Speaker 1: ship heading northbound. Just wanted to give you the heads up.
Speaker 1: How are you guys doing And the response from the
Speaker 1: Edmund Fitzgerald was we're holding our own. And that turned
Speaker 1: out to be the final message from the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Speaker 1: That was at seven ten pm a squall whipped up
Speaker 1: and temporarily not only um blinded the visuals from the
Speaker 1: Anderson of the Edmund Fitzgerald, it swamped their dar too,
Speaker 1: so they couldn't catch anything on radar for about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Then the whole thing cleared up and they could see again.
Speaker 1: But what they couldn't see was the Edmund Fitzgerald. And
Speaker 1: it's not that they couldn't see because they could see
Speaker 1: that northbound ship further away. They could see the lights
Speaker 1: of Whitefish Point further away. But what they did not
Speaker 1: see was the Edmond Fitzgerald. So in that ten minutes,
Speaker 1: the Edmund Fitzgerald went from being on top of the
Speaker 1: Great Lakes to sinking, which is astoundingly fast for a
Speaker 1: seven hundred and thirty sorry, twenty nine ft ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: super fast. Uh. I think that's a great place for
Speaker 1: a second break, and we'll talk about some of the
Speaker 1: theories and what happened right for this all right, So
Speaker 1: the Anderson has uh looked out their front window ten
Speaker 1: minutes after they hear that the Eddie fits is holding
Speaker 1: its own or her own I guess even though I
Speaker 1: did see one of the people referred to the Edmund
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald as a he but then everywhere else I look
Speaker 1: said she, yeah, maybe they were talking about the actual
Speaker 1: president of the insurance company. Maybe so. Uh, so they
Speaker 1: get the word ten minutes later, the Edmund Fitzgerald is
Speaker 1: no longer in sight. And uh the Anderson captain, Captain
Speaker 1: Cooper started to try and get in touch with the
Speaker 1: coast Guard and said, hey, that we think this this
Speaker 1: boat has sank out here. The ship we can't even
Speaker 1: see it anymore, and the coast Guard didn't believe him
Speaker 1: at first. I had to get all the way to
Speaker 1: Whitefish Point, uh and pull in there, and there was
Speaker 1: clearly no Edmund Fitzgerald there at that point. Before they
Speaker 1: finally got on the emerge and see response. But again
Speaker 1: another like you know, and it may have been futile,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of uh in retrospect, considering how fast
Speaker 1: this thing went down. Um, maybe there was no chance
Speaker 1: of saving any lives. But there wasn't much of an
Speaker 1: effort that could be made because the storm was so bad. Uh.
Speaker 1: The coast Guard didn't have a rescue vessel available unless
Speaker 1: it came from I think Minnesota, which was like twenty
Speaker 1: four hours away. Uh. They had search aircraft, but they
Speaker 1: couldn't perform rescues. Uh. And they said to the Anderson, Hey,
Speaker 1: I know you just came in from this horrible experience
Speaker 1: at sea. Would you go back out there in this
Speaker 1: weather and look for survivors? And the Anderson, to their credit,
Speaker 1: said yeah, well we'll do it. We'll do our best. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Super to their credit because they didn't just ask the Anderson.
Speaker 1: They asked all ships in the area who would go back,
Speaker 1: and uh, the Anderson, I think there was another one
Speaker 1: that went back, but a handful of them were like,
Speaker 1: now we're not it's just too risky. There's probably no survivors.
Speaker 1: Were just not doing it. And I saw that you
Speaker 1: really can't fault them, like that's the smart thing to
Speaker 1: do if you're a captain. But um, it really is
Speaker 1: to the Anderson and the other ship's credit for having
Speaker 1: turned around and going back out there just on the
Speaker 1: slimmest chance that there was somebody who they could rescue.
Speaker 1: And what they found was a couple of battered lifeboats,
Speaker 1: little bit of flotsam, and that was it. I don't
Speaker 1: even think they found an oil slick um and there
Speaker 1: was nothing. There were no survivors. There were there was
Speaker 1: no one Um, there were no corpses. There was just
Speaker 1: nothing there. Um. What's amazing, though, Chuck, is after just
Speaker 1: a couple of days they managed to locate the ship,
Speaker 1: and they located the ship in about five and thirty
Speaker 1: ft of water about seventeen miles off of white Fish Point.
Speaker 1: Right when they got to Whitefish Point they would have
Speaker 1: hit the harbor, they would have been totally safe, and
Speaker 1: that that boat could go almost sixteen miles an hour
Speaker 1: at top speed, So they were roughly an hour away
Speaker 1: from safety and they sank. It gets even worse. This
Speaker 1: was the last um, the last trip of the season,
Speaker 1: and the first mate and the captain were both retiring,
Speaker 1: so this was their last, their last sale, their last trip.
Speaker 1: So all of those things put together and you're like, man,
Speaker 1: that was so close and it went down. But when
Speaker 1: it went down, it doesn't matter if you're one mile
Speaker 1: or seventeen miles or a hundred miles. That water is
Speaker 1: so cold you're you're in trouble really fast. That's that's
Speaker 1: the movie trope. If someone mentions retirement, if it's like
Speaker 1: a cop or somebody or anyone that drives a large thing,
Speaker 1: like well, there that show that you recommended to me
Speaker 1: even had that trope. I don't remember that part, but
Speaker 1: I'll have to go back and watch the Do you
Speaker 1: like the show, Well, we're almost done. We got one more. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give away that part. But we're
Speaker 1: talking about the Devil's Hour. It's an Amazon Prime Um
Speaker 1: special original. We're way into it. But I don't want
Speaker 1: to say anything else. I don't want to give anything away. Well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna love the last episode because like there's nothing
Speaker 1: that's left, like unbuttoned. It's it's the opposite of severance.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling, well, severances continues. But does this
Speaker 1: show continue or is this a one off? This is it? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm about to get Scooby Dude tonight then right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're gonna love it, dude. I'll be very surprised if
Speaker 1: you're like, this is terrible. Good show, good recommendation. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So the next Spring six that was a one of
Speaker 1: those little unmanned robotic diving camera vehicles that did a
Speaker 1: big underwater search and survey of the record site and
Speaker 1: what they found, which explains a lot, but also not
Speaker 1: it doesn't explain really what happened, but they explained how
Speaker 1: fast it happened when they found two pieces. They found
Speaker 1: Edmund Fitzgerald basically in two big chunks, uh, the bowl
Speaker 1: which was upright, but it was listing at about fifteen
Speaker 1: degrees and it was buried in thirty feet of mud,
Speaker 1: which really indicates how fast it's basically torpedoed to the
Speaker 1: bottom into thirty ft of mud. And then they had
Speaker 1: the f section about a hundred and seventy feet away,
Speaker 1: which was upside down. So this boat essentially kind of
Speaker 1: broken half. It did, and um that when it when
Speaker 1: it hit that thirty ft of mud. Apparently the reason
Speaker 1: it stopped at thirty ft was because it hit bedrock.
Speaker 1: It would have kept, yeah, it probably, but it hit bedrocks,
Speaker 1: so it stopped immediately. And um, if you believe that
Speaker 1: that ship was in one piece as it was going
Speaker 1: down and hit hit the bottom, then that means all
Speaker 1: of that weight, of the twenty six thousand tons of
Speaker 1: tech nite pellets, all the water is carrying all the
Speaker 1: fuel it's ill had came barreling towards the front that
Speaker 1: had stopped, and that the whole thing just came apart.
Speaker 1: And apparently on the wreck site there's about two feet
Speaker 1: of the ship missing, and it's not missing, it's just
Speaker 1: torn into such ribbons that it appears to just disintegrated.
Speaker 1: But that that's that seems to support the idea that
Speaker 1: it did go down in one piece, which is there's
Speaker 1: a couple of theories on that. Well, I guess we
Speaker 1: should talk about some of the theories. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there have been plenty of dives over the years that
Speaker 1: went down there. I think the the families are always
Speaker 1: worried that just recreational divers, we're going to go down
Speaker 1: there and sort of desecrate a sacred spot. So it's
Speaker 1: in Canadian waters, and over the years, the Ontario Heritage
Speaker 1: Act has been amended a few times to restrict access,
Speaker 1: so no one that's not official could get down there.
Speaker 1: So that's good. Um. But there's a few theories about
Speaker 1: what happened officially, Um, there are a couple of reports. UM.
Speaker 1: One was from the TSB. It was inconclusive but basically
Speaker 1: said there were heavy seas, there were heavy waves, the
Speaker 1: ship basically became a wash what they call green water,
Speaker 1: which are waves that are so deep that there they
Speaker 1: actually have color to them, and that the deck sides
Speaker 1: held all this water there and the hatches were not
Speaker 1: fully water tight because those clamps weren't fastened down all
Speaker 1: the way, and so you just had water pouring in
Speaker 1: there and pouring in there and pouring in there, and
Speaker 1: eventually that was enough water to fully collapse one of
Speaker 1: those huge steel doors for one of the cargo holes
Speaker 1: for one of those hatches, and just massive amounts of
Speaker 1: water started pouring in and it sank super fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and those I saw a presentation by a guy I
Speaker 1: can't remember if it's Rick or Bruce mixed r. He's
Speaker 1: one of the people who's UM officially been a member
Speaker 1: of like dives and expeditions to the admin Fitzger and
Speaker 1: he showed pictures of UM those clamps that were still intact,
Speaker 1: and he he was he made a really good point.
Speaker 1: I thought, UM, if those clamps had been shut on
Speaker 1: a hatch that was torn off or popped off when
Speaker 1: the UM when the ship like hit that bedrock, UM,
Speaker 1: that clamp would be in pieces, it would be all twisted.
Speaker 1: But the fact that it's in tact suggests that it
Speaker 1: was not attached or clamped at the time that the
Speaker 1: ship sunk. So they're probably almost certainly were clamps that
Speaker 1: were not attached that we're not clamped down. But whether
Speaker 1: that's what caused the problem or not is the that's
Speaker 1: a big point of contention because again it says this
Speaker 1: guy should have known better, They really should have clamped
Speaker 1: the stuff. Maybe they would have survived had they had
Speaker 1: they clamped their hatches like they were supposed to. Or
Speaker 1: it's you know that this was a force of nature
Speaker 1: that was was inevitable. Um, that's kind of what it
Speaker 1: comes down to. And depending on who you are, you know,
Speaker 1: especially if you're a family member, because there's plenty of
Speaker 1: family members still alive. But this is so recent. The
Speaker 1: Arthur m. Anderson is still it still works like it's
Speaker 1: it's still out there on the Great Lakes today. Um,
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of family members who weren't like you know,
Speaker 1: great great grandsons these Yeah, there are people whose dad's
Speaker 1: they were are alive now and are are you know,
Speaker 1: get really upset at the idea that, you know, the
Speaker 1: suggestion that this was their fault, so much so that
Speaker 1: apparently Gordon Lightfoot in the original version of the song,
Speaker 1: he talks about the hatches being unlatched, and um, he
Speaker 1: found out how upset that that was making the families, uh,
Speaker 1: and that it was possible that wasn't true, and he
Speaker 1: went back and revised the lyrics. That is why he's
Speaker 1: the Pride of Canada. I think he a couple of
Speaker 1: different times revised the lyrics too, sort of more accurately
Speaker 1: reflect what may have happened, which, yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: something that you don't see a lot. Okay, So if
Speaker 1: the iches were open, Chuck, that would fully explain how
Speaker 1: the ship sunk, because, like you said, these were screen
Speaker 1: dividers that that kept them that didn't really separate the
Speaker 1: um the holds from one another from water, right right,
Speaker 1: So water going in one of these giant by eleven
Speaker 1: foot hatch openings would probably be enough to to sink
Speaker 1: the ship. That's one. That's one UM idea. There's another
Speaker 1: idea that has nothing to do with hatches to right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are a couple. Uh. The Lake Carriers Association, Uh,
Speaker 1: they had a report that suggested that it struck a shoal,
Speaker 1: the six fathom shoal at Cariboo Island, UM. And this
Speaker 1: is based on some different things. Partially that UM Captain
Speaker 1: Cooper of the Anderson noted that that Edmund Fitzgerald was
Speaker 1: closer to Cariboo than made him comfortable. He was like,
Speaker 1: they're a little too close. So it may have hit
Speaker 1: the shoal, but I think they haven't really found shoal
Speaker 1: damage at the wreckage site. Uh. And then the other
Speaker 1: big one is possibly a series of three rogue waves
Speaker 1: that just took this thing down in quick succession. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The captain of the Anderson, Bernie Cooper, apparently said later
Speaker 1: on that there were two waves that passed him that
Speaker 1: were just huge, and he was behind the um the
Speaker 1: Eman Fitzgerald, which meant those waves were heading towards the
Speaker 1: Van Fitzgerald. And he said it was right at the time,
Speaker 1: around between seven ten seven twenty. That would have fully
Speaker 1: accounted for pushing the Evan Fitzgerald down. And all it
Speaker 1: had to do again was get that bow down underwater
Speaker 1: and get the stern up out of the water a
Speaker 1: little bit, and all of those tac knite pellets would
Speaker 1: have slid forward and it would have just been the
Speaker 1: end from that point on, and it would have happened
Speaker 1: really really fast too. Uh. If that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: So it's possible if they did get swamped by a
Speaker 1: couple of waves. It was over in seconds basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they went down in ten minutes. That's that
Speaker 1: also helps explain why you know, there was no time
Speaker 1: to get into lifeboats or anything like that. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: also why they didn't, you know, the only bodies they
Speaker 1: found I think we're still in the ship basically. Um,
Speaker 1: you know we mentioned earlier than not quite sister ship,
Speaker 1: the Homer as far as comparing, like, hey, this thing
Speaker 1: was welded and not riveted, and it always did fine.
Speaker 1: It didn't go through a storm like this, so it's
Speaker 1: you can't make like a direct comparison. Uh. There's also
Speaker 1: other theories that like those hatch covers were maybe damaged
Speaker 1: by equipment flying around or like a tree, uh you
Speaker 1: know there. You know it was along the shoreline, so
Speaker 1: there could have been like trees out there being washed aboard. Well.
Speaker 1: Plus also they were carrying a spare propeller blade, massive
Speaker 1: propeller blade on deck, so it's possible that that got
Speaker 1: loose and started sliding around. That would have caused some
Speaker 1: pretty big damage too. But you just don't know, like
Speaker 1: as not far back in time as this was in
Speaker 1: seventy five, Like we have a really accurate records of
Speaker 1: it going out and what it was carrying, and how
Speaker 1: many people were on board and what time everything happened.
Speaker 1: But it's what happened in that that lost ten minutes
Speaker 1: that no one will ever really know. I don't think, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: And and it's almost certain we won't know because there
Speaker 1: were three major expeditions on the wreck, eight nine and
Speaker 1: ninety five, and after the ninety five expedition, the families said, okay, um,
Speaker 1: we've we've gotten all the evidence we can get. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't want anyone diving on the wreck anymore. And
Speaker 1: on the people on the expedition promised they wouldn't dive
Speaker 1: on the Edmund Fitzgerald anymore. And I think since two
Speaker 1: thousand four or five, like you said, it's been protected
Speaker 1: by the government of Ontario, so you could get to it,
Speaker 1: but you could probably get in trouble. And also you
Speaker 1: would be diving on a grave, a grave site basically,
Speaker 1: and you're not really supposed to do that, especially when
Speaker 1: the family is alive and asking you not to do that.
Speaker 1: And there's actually a piece of the Edmund Fitzgerald that
Speaker 1: you can go see at the Great Lakes Ship of
Speaker 1: Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point. And it's the bell, the
Speaker 1: bell of the Yeah, it was raised on that expedition. Um.
Speaker 1: There was a huge team of people from all over
Speaker 1: the world who came together. Um. The family was there
Speaker 1: on eighty five ft yacht that was donated by the
Speaker 1: guy who invented the bunt pan and got very wealthy
Speaker 1: from that, and I guess Um took an interest in
Speaker 1: helping those people out. I can't remember what his name is.
Speaker 1: I feel like a jerk for not remembering him. But no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't bunt It's a variation of boond Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They added the T I think to make it less
Speaker 1: nazi Ish. But Um they raised the bell, and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of controversy about that too, Chuck, because
Speaker 1: that's part of the ship. According to some people, that's
Speaker 1: the heart and soul of the ship, as the bell,
Speaker 1: and the enough of the families wanted it that the
Speaker 1: government of Ontario, along humanitarian ground said okay, you guys
Speaker 1: can go retreat that and it's now Um you can
Speaker 1: see it at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, and they
Speaker 1: replaced it with a replica of the bell that has
Speaker 1: the inscription of all twenty nine men who went down
Speaker 1: with the ship their names on that. Yeah, classy move.
Speaker 1: And when they brought it up, they had a big
Speaker 1: ceremony where they rang the bell thirty times, twenty nine
Speaker 1: for the lost souls, and then one to commemorate all
Speaker 1: the other souls lost at sea on the Great Lakes. So, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't have any family that was on that ship,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like a I think, like a pretty
Speaker 1: respectful way to memorialize it. Was. It was, like I said,
Speaker 1: it was kind of controversial, but in the end it
Speaker 1: seemed like, yes, it was. It was a good way
Speaker 1: to do it. And I saw footage from that expedition
Speaker 1: where as that bell breaks the water, it started ringing
Speaker 1: just from the wave action, and it was like haunting,
Speaker 1: you know, just to hear that and it just it
Speaker 1: happening on its own like that. It was really something.
Speaker 1: So that's it. Now. Do you understand why kids along
Speaker 1: the Great Lakes are raised on their story? You understand now?
Speaker 1: I hope everybody else understands two and sheds a tear
Speaker 1: for the twenty nine souls that went down with the
Speaker 1: Edmund Fitzgerald agreed, also, Chuck, we need to hat tip
Speaker 1: our good friend ed Grabanowski the Grabster, for helping us
Speaker 1: out with us when he did a fantastic job. Great
Speaker 1: great article. Ed. Uh, since I just thanked ed, and
Speaker 1: since I also previously just spoke like a sea captain,
Speaker 1: of course it's time for listener mail. Uh. This guy
Speaker 1: just sounds awesome, and so I'm gonna read his email.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I was, as per usual, I greatly enjoyed
Speaker 1: your podcast on typewriters. I particularly liked the section on
Speaker 1: the IBM S Electric. We got a lot of electric
Speaker 1: enthusiasts boomers that wrote in that were just like, oh man,
Speaker 1: what a great machine. As one of the earliest personal
Speaker 1: computer geeks, I desperately wanted a printer. The cheapest dot
Speaker 1: Matrix printers were pouring quality and way out of my
Speaker 1: price range. So in I bought a US Electric took
Speaker 1: it apart. It was a marvel of mechanical engineering inside,
Speaker 1: truly wondrous. I found that I could attach tin solaroids
Speaker 1: to the various levers and parts of the whiffle tree
Speaker 1: inside to make it fully computer controlled with an altar computer,
Speaker 1: and I ended up printing my thesis on it. Glavin
Speaker 1: super Glavin two minor additions to your description of this electric.
Speaker 1: The typewriter had only one motor uh to power all functions,
Speaker 1: and it ran continuously clever clutches and linkage is made.
Speaker 1: Everything from keystrokes and tabs to carriage returns run from
Speaker 1: that single motor. The second thing to add was the
Speaker 1: greatest feature of this electric The golf ball print head
Speaker 1: would be swapped very quickly to give you a whole
Speaker 1: new font so you could type with the talics Greek letters,
Speaker 1: which is useful for scientific papers, even special computer symbols
Speaker 1: as for the A p L computer language. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that is from Ken Wells, my new favorite listener. Yes, Ken,
Speaker 1: hats off like I would be telling everybody that story too,
Speaker 1: So I'm glad We've got to spread the news that
Speaker 1: you are an awesome engineering type. So way to go.
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Ken and get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, you can via email. You can make
Speaker 1: your own computer if you want to start, but either way,
Speaker 1: address it to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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