The Edmund Fitzgerald

MN Historical Society ^ | 11-10-04 | Rakkasan1

[condi2008]

Y'all need to visit This Thread.

[SamAdams76]

I do not think a storm sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald.

[hattend]

historically ships are always called "her" or "she"... whats the origin of the gender preference?

From back in the day when voyages were long and knotholes were plenty in wooden ships.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I'm kidding, I have no idea.

[TC Rider]

The rest of you may think me an idiot, but until now I always thought the song was about a historical event and the EF was some old steamer. I must have been busy in 1975 to have missed the wreck.

[Rakkasan1]

basically , it was Bush's fault.

[don-o]

and a link to the song.

used to have it on my old puter

[drc43]

"I do not think a storm sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Hmmm. I recall when this happened. One of the fiercest storms in Great Lakes history with hurricane force winds and a raging blizzard.

Absent this monster storm, it surely would not have sunk.

[MetalHeadConservative35]

yep a warning to heed on superior

she does keep her dead. rarely will you ever find a body

[don-o]

But never mind, I have a download.

Share?

[Former Proud Canadian]

Good post. I live in Windsor and they play that song a lot around here this time of year. Mariner's Church, referred to in the song, is located on Jefferson Ave. in Detroit, right at the tunnel entrance.

[sharpee]

The Sunday after the Edmund Fitzgerald sank I went to the Luthern church in Cleveland Heights. The ship was run out of Cleveland and one of the mangers got up and talked about the loss of the ship and the crew. He new most of them. It was very moving.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

According to post #78, it should be on in ten minutes...

http://www.wpr.org/webcasting

[MaryFromMichigan]

I do not think a storm sunk the Edmund Fitzgerald.

It was a h*llava storm.
Click here.
November is dubbed "The Month of Storms" on the Great Lakes. The storm that hit when the Fitzgerald went down was one of the biggest, and the worst that Captain McSorley said he had ever seen. In the Fitzgerald's storm, winds as fast as 45 knots were reported, with waves as high as thirty feet. Both water pumps on the Edmund Fitzgerald were damaged, and the lifeboats were destroyed by the force of the storm...

[weldAllday]

Thats called having an EARWORM , named by some researcher who has studied this problem

[July 4th]

Admiral Hoffman, the man who was the head of the Swift Boat Vets, used to be the harbormaster of Milwaukee. I can't remember his explanation word for word, but he had a very good understanding of the way that the storms on the lakes operate.

The Great Lakes are actually more dangerous than the ocean because of the frequency of the waves. The depth of the lake, coupled with the atmospheric changes in the Midwest, make the wave frequency much, much higher than the ocean. The swells come a great deal faster than the ocean, making it almost impossible to ride out a bad storm. The high frequency of the waves pummels the hell out of the ships until they fall apart.

[Tuxedo]

My dad was a Hullet operator and used to unload the big Fitz in Cleveland for Republic Steel. Ssid you could see her coming across the lake sooner than any other vessel and it took forever to unload her.

[Fierce Allegiance]

The line in the song that really reminded me of being underway in the heavy shit is "fellas it's too rough to feed ya."

I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a few winter storms strapped into the watch chair getting slammed around because my shipmates were so seasick they couldn't see.

[RonF]

Hymn #608 in the ECUSA's 1980 Hymnal (in 4 parts).