Remembering the SS Edmund Fitzgerald
- Kyle Sooley-Brookings
- Nov 11, 2019
- 1 min read
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American freighter that sank on Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975.
The entire crew of 29 perished.
When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there.
Carrying a full cargo of ore pellets with Captain Ernest M. McSorley in command, she embarked on her ill-fated voyage from Superior, Wisconsin, near Duluth, on the afternoon of November 9, 1975.
En route to a steel mill near Detroit, Edmund Fitzgerald joined a second freighter, SS Arthur M. Anderson. By the next day, the two ships were caught in a severe storm on Lake Superior, with near hurricane-force winds and waves up to 11 meters high. Shortly after 7:10 p.m., Edmund Fitzgerald suddenly sank in Ontario waters 160 meters deep, about 15 nautical miles; from Whitefish Bay near the twin cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
Comments