The Edmund Fitzgerald Mystery

Your narration is brutal. Yawn

Superior, it's said, never gives up her dead.

I was a Shipwright and a welder for many years at Swan Island Shipyards . I’ve been in hundreds of ships and welded hundreds of fractures though I’ve never been in those waters i’m aware of how rough those seas can be even in good weather. Rough seas, put tremendous strain on steel, even superior steel . A stress fracture in just the right area can snap even a super tanker in half. It would be interesting to know when that shit was inspected by OSHA what grade the fractures were.

I think she suffered metal fatigue and broke up

I was in my late teens when my dad who worked for Burlington Northern was transferred to Superior WI in 1975 right before this maritime disaster. I went to the shipyard with him quite a few times. It was so eerie and real to me when this happened. I loved living in Superior just a couple of blocks from Lake Superior. There was a young man same age as me working on the ship that died. That really hit home with me😢

The ship split in half. The sections being separated shows the split happened before impact.

When your captain who just got dumped turns towards the 6 fathom shoal and says "you know bro she was my world"

We can rule out terrorists with box cutters.

Something is up. Tuey shut down dives before why it sank got out...just like Titanic; the insurance company made up the iceberg story to keep from paying out because the boilers exploding and blowing the bottom off the ship would have made them liable..

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

I think there are 2 theories that are correct. I think the NTSB was partly-right by saying the hatch covers were leaking water in. It would explain why the ship was taking on water and had to have both pumps going. Water was coming in from somewhere. Beyond that, already getting bogged down with water and sinking lower, I think a rogue wave was the final nail in her coffin. With the increased weight, and sitting lower, a rogue wave would have both flexed the ship aggressively, and then slammed water down on her deck, hard. The incompressible nature of the water would act like a giant sledgehammer, breaking her back and snapping her in 2. The continued flood of water from above would've drug her under within seconds, never allowing a real chance for a mayday.

Assuming the hatch covers were on perfect or couldn't leak in enough water to either match or overwhelm the pumps, then it is also possible the hull had cracking, splits, or holes either obtained over time, throughout the rough storm, or specifically at the 6-Fathom Shoals. Either way, we know she was taking on water. It stands to reason the water in her hold made her sink lower. The fact that both pumps were energized, and they were only "holding their own", per the captain, says that they were pumping marginally faster than they were taking on water, or were taking on water slightly faster than the pumps could clear it. Either way, they had a lot of water in the hold. Stress the hull with too much weight, and hammer it with a rogue wave, and it's almost guaranteed to break somewhere.

Someone on the Edmund Fitzgerald said 2 hatches had come open…….or maybe he hull didn’t have cracks….seems like by now they could find out.

My father believes that she took a nose dive into the lake floor. The ship is way longer than the depth of water it’s in. One huge wave and bang.

I think the giant impact field on the front of the ship should be a dead giveaway as to what happened. Rogue wave.

It was aliens

The legend lives on from the cipiawa on down on the grate lake they call gichagomy

That was a tragedy

Mystery? What mystery? Gordon Lightfoot explained the whole story!

There are photos of missing hatch covers and only 2 of 36 total C-Clamps bent per cover. If I remembered the 36 total C-Clamps correctly for one cover, 34 were unused and left hanging by their chains. The Fitz was unsinkable if all the hatch covers were in place. The ship would fill with water if not. The Fitz was not equipped with automatic locking hatch covers. If it was, it would still be hauling ore today, "From some mill in Wisconsin". This was a great video, thank you. I live in WI near the "Sea" of Michigan. This wreck has always interested me, in part because of the song.

The mystery of what happened to her has haunted me for all my life. I believe she broke apart. Broke into two pieces. I believe that given a bizarre and horrific chain of events, her communication was completely cutting off. God rest the men sailing on her that fateful trip... I hope will always remember....

Personally, I think every mate on board, should be considered a professional, and a hero, and that it was a horrible accident, due to the weather.

Great investigation, this story and the final sightings of the Fitz are so chilling.

Good show. And I do want to hear your opinion. The review board got it wrong. Being the last run of the season and the men knowing full well the unpredictability of the weather and waters, they would not have cut corners on securing the boat. In clear midsummer maybe, but not in November. I tend to think it was a combination of things that perhaps turned into a Murphy's Law of things. Such as with the twisting and inversions from high waves, one of the stress fractures became too large. Then from that fracture the side rails gave way which brought on the water. Then of course with the two storms waltzing one moment and ramming head on the next, a monster wave could have caused her to scrape bottom as some think. Then finally, that last 25 foot wave brought the end. God bless the families of the men that long so much to know.

The palisade heads are massive 100 foot cliffs on the shoreline in-between Duluth and Grand Marais. It is truly strange that in the middle of North America, there is essentially a sea surrounded by land on all sides.

I think it hit the bottom, at 6 fathom shoals. And it opened up the Hull to allow water to flood the hold, and she sank.

This nearly a literal word for word copy of the 1995 discovery channel episode about the ship. Including their photos. Get your own material.

Rogue wave took them completely unawares?

Ps great narration

Very interesting lakes more like inland oceans

Arrogance.

"Bad luck" is almsot always the result of poor decisions

The covers were not properly secured. When the water came, it got in the hold and the weight sunk the ship. If the covers were not secure during this trip with a huge storm, they were probably habitually not secured in the past, when the weather was not a factor. The captain should have walked the ship and checked for issues like that. If it happened that time, the chances are very good that it happed 100 times before that. If the captain found it even 50 times before that and did some keelhauling, they would all be in the old shipmate's home today. It is for the this reason that it was the captain's fault.

My grandparents live near the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior. I grew up seeing stories of kayakers and people in canoes dying every year because they got caught out on the lake when the weather changed for the worse. I have a healthy dose of respect and fear for the terrifying unpredictable weather systems Lake Superior.

Lake huron will kill you . Dont u der estimate these waters

I rewatched that other video from the larger channel. Yours was more informative and entertaining. New subscriber here.

Excellent video. Learned a lot. Thank you for your time & effort. Still a sad, sad story!

Great video! Thanks for putting such hard work into it! I think she split up and never had a chance. Superior never gives up her dead!

it's probably a combination of prior ship damage/stress and poor conditions. My guess a rather larger than normal (not rogue size, just a large wave) struck the front of the ship which cause it to crack somewhere on the hull which then caused it to sink and split whilst sinking (kind of like how the titanic sunk except with a wave instead of an iceberg). I don't think it was anything "out of this world" such as a rogue wave or some sort of creature; its most likely just poor maintenance of the ship (or even just stress over the years) caused it to sink after taking a frontal hit from a particularly large wave. As for there not being a distress signal not being sent out I'm going to again chalk that up to poor maintenance/old equipment plus poor conditions causing electrics to fail

I live on a Lake and also near the Atlantic ocean. I can't imagine a Lake of that size.

I$ the wheatherwasnt so bad it would still float

It clearly split in half. Big waves caused a voide under the ship causing all that weight to come down in the middle and she split in half. probably sank in 30 sec. Getting to the life boats and launching them would probably take 20-30 min.

I like this video!

If I could speculate.. if the Edmund Fitzgerald hit bottom, they would have distressed some kind of emergency, and it would have likely broke up and sank close to the sholes. If it hit bottom and was sinking slowly, a distress call would have been made as well. Because the radio contact and radar stopped simultaneously, something extreme happened very quickly and while in deep water. I believe either the stresses of excess water in the hold and/or combination of rogue wave(s) caused the ship to break suddenly and violently leaving the crew and captain no time to react. Travelling near parts of the lake where the underwater terrain varies in depth during a storm, you would encounter some pretty massive waves. Power and communications were rendered useless immediately and the ship took only minutes to slip below the surface because of the significant damage. May the crew of the Fitz, Gordon Lightfoot, and Mateo all rest in peace.

I've seen some other reports that faulted the cargo covers. They had been patched with bondo so many times that the crew wouldn't walk on them. The last CG inspection had passed the, but at the time, they weren't even on the ship.
The CG refused to invite that, tho. Curious...

All the evidence indicates that the ship took a nose dive.

With stories like this you can see how sea monster tales persist.

Fast fact …if u stood the edmond fitzgerald on its butt , over half of her would be sticking out of the water.

❤ The wreckage of the ship be a cemetery. No one will ever know what happened silly in this age of discovery. Sounds like a cover-up.