The Loss Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

The Edmund Fitzgerald construction began on August 9th 1957 in the Detroit Great Lake Engineering shipyard on the Rouge River. It was launched on the 7th June 1958, by Elizabeth Fitzgerald on the third attempt to break the bottle of champagne on the ship's bow. It was the largest ship of the time at 729 feet and could carry 25,000 tons of cargo that would sail the great lakes on the Canadian, American border.

The ship was named after the president of the Northwestern Mutual and soon had her nick name "The Mighty Fitz" - this was shortened to "Fitz". She gave over 25 years of service, only having a couple of mishaps on the way, In 1969 near Soo docks the Fitz ran aground causing substantial structural damage. Repairs were carried out to the keelson (the reinforced ribs attached to the keel).

The Fitz was loading taconite (low grade iron pellets) at the Burlington-Northern docks on 9th November 1975. Later that day the Fitz set sail to Detroit in a northeasterly direction. The weather forecast was storms on Lake Superior on Monday 10th November. Early evening of the 9th November the storms had started and the Fitz could see another ship called the Anderson ahead. During the night the Fitz, a faster ship had overtaken the Anderson. Both ships had been in storms this severe before and both captains were used to the November weathers on the lakes.

The evening of the 10th, the Anderson was about15 mile behind the Fitz when the Fitz captain radioed the Anderson that she had lost both her radars due to the being damaged by the weather and was sailing blind. The Anderson was requested to catch up and navigate on behalf of the Fitz. But during the night the radar contact with the Fitz had disappeared.

The Anderson captain tried in vain to contact the Fitz, and requested assistance to search for the Fitz, they never heard or saw the Fitz again.