The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Ping Hawk!)

You may find this interesting, Hawk. This is a Discovery Channel video...ignore the tear-jerking. It's life on the water - as you know - but yet, the opposite.

You know the bayous of the Gulf. This is the cold, freshwater of the Great Lakes. Yet...like your bayous, so constrained in how a large boat or ship can move. You have the tides. The Great Lakes has the Witch of November...that's a real thing, never mind Gordon Lightfoot. Weather is volatile in late fall.

These Great Lakes ore carriers are like barges with engines - not at all fitted for ocean service, but exactly what's needed for moving ore or commodities from one end of the lakes to the other. But...a storm hits, and if the boat is not in a safe harbor...disaster.

The Mighty Fitz was the biggest, but by no means the only.

I was part of this world. I was born in New York City but from age 5 was in Cleveland...three-quarters of my life spent in the general area, age 5 to 50. Time away, in Buffalo, and short times in Houston, Denver, San Diego. But the Great Lakes will always be my home.

A neighbor of ours went down on the Fitz. No point in naming him - I didn't know him. I was seventeen years old and he was much older; but it brought it all home. Later I lived in a town, Fairport Harbor, Ohio, where several other Fitz casualties had come from.

Water is life. The nature of the water determines the flavor of life. I think that's something that Bayou creatures and Great Lakes sailors and families, friends, can agree on.

they struck a shoal

jirqoadai wrote:they struck a shoal

Almost certainly.

Rough sea, and equipment failure...they had their hands full and didn't even feel the hit on the uncharted shoal. The captain had reported he had flooding; and then the swells got VERY rough. The additional weight of the flooded compartments...sent the nose down to where it couldn't bob back up.

Spent a couple of weeks each summers in the 50's mid 60's in Conneaut. It was interesting to watch them load the freighters. They would pick up a r.r. car turn it over on a chute and dump it. Probably limestone for Cleveland. Later went to Cedar Point. You ever get to Lonz winery? They also had flyovers with a Ford TriMotor.

Never got to Lonz.

By the time I was old enough to drink, and back in Northeast Ohio, I was already working on the railroad. I was living in New York State, and then in Portage County south of there, and then in Denver.

I returned to Ohio to take the job with Conrail, which was on-call 24/7. No time to party. Joke was, if you were home, on the call-list, and wanted to go to work...just crack open a beer. Your phone would blow up before you got the second sip down.

Spent a lot of time in Conneaut, though...yarding and building trains out of the B&LE loading dock there. In my years, it was coal going through, and going out - coal exports. I don't remember limestone coming in.