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2009-11-10 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Today in History: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

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Posted by Mike 2009-11-10 06:52|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Link goes nowhere.

Posted by gromky 2009-11-10 08:01|| ]">[ ] 2009-11-10 08:01|| Front Page Top

#2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw

Posted by Plastic Snoopy 2009-11-10 10:51|| 2009-11-10 10:51|| Front Page Top

#3 At 17, in 1942, my dad shipped out on an ore carrier as a steward. That meant he made everybody's bunk, swabbed the deck, and helped the cook get chow on for the crew. Sometimes the latter chore meant peeling 25 lbs of potatoes, sometimes that meant fishing off the ship's fantail on a quiet day. He enlisted in the Navy in 1943, finished submarine school in 1944, and was quartermaster on 3 war patrols before the Japanese surrendered. He came back to the Lakes during the summers to earn room and board while going to college on the GI Bill. He worked his way up from the firehold to the pilothouse over seven years. He finished college, left the Lakes, and went on to a career as a chemist.

The ore carriers loaded up at the Lake Superior ports by pulling alongside huge wooden trestles called chutes. A switch engine would pull dozens of hoppers full of ore or taconite on a track the length of the chute. The hoppers dumped their loads into the chutes. When the chutes were full, each chute was emptied into a hatch on the carrier. When the carrier was full, the crew dogged her hatches and cast off.

If you've ever stirred up waves in a bathtub, you know that the ripples crash against the side of the tub and bounce back, at odd angles to the other waves. The same thing happens in a storm on the Lakes. Huge waves bounce off the shores and roll back in several directions. Hurricane winds can blow in one direction while the waves are running in the opposite direction. Freak waves can combine into one monster wave over 60 feet high.

The captain of the Anderson thought that the Fitz was way too close to a rock reef, and may have touched bottom and done damage without knowing it, cracking her hull several hours before she disappeared (source: Dwight Boyer). Other possibilities: she may have fallen into the trough of several rogue waves, may have got caught between two wave crests and her unsupported keel collapsed; or she may have submarined under a particularly nasty wave and not recovered. People will debate this case til Kingdom Come.

Posted by mom">mom 2009-11-10 17:28|| 2009-11-10 17:28|| Front Page Top

#4 thought i watched something on the Discovery channel recently about this. As I recall the investigators, after finding the wreck on the bottom, concluded that the load shifted and crashed into the back of the cargo area, damaging the rear doors and letting the lake pour in until it sank.

Posted by abu do you love ">abu do you love 2009-11-10 19:00|| 2009-11-10 19:00|| Front Page Top

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