To Milossarian: All folk songs are simplistic and repetitive. But you are right about how bringing a deep emotional response from that framework.
The tune is a wrenching, beautiful dirge, at least the way it is used here, and the torturous chords laid over it bring out the drama even more. That it is a recycled tune is irrelevant, since that is proper form in all of folk music. Lyrically, it’s as good a song as Lightfoot ever wrote. I like the line about the cook, too.
I think that the enduring interest by the general population in the E.F. is almost entirely due to this song.
Entirely due. Think of all the horrible disasters that have occured in your corner of the world during the last 25 years. Anyone outside of the local area still discussing them a quarter of a century later? Memorable disasters are hard to come by these days.
And it’s founder not flounder. A flounder is a fish. To founder means to sink. (All in the spirit of fighting ignorance, of course.)
After following some of the comments on this thread, I thought many might benefit from the following;
The words to many other moving great lakes folk songs by the Stan Rogers to whom I referred earlier can be found at http://log.on.ca/stanrogers/fcm.html. The songs on From Fresh Water, in particular evoke many of the same feelings for me as do Lightfoot’s EF, except that Rogers’ voice booms and echoes with emotion until your bones rattle. Also check out a track called “The Jeannie C.” on the CD turnaround. Chilling stuff, really. Just when you think Rogers is the best kept secret around, you discover someone from halfway around the world who’s been all over the idea even before yourself.
Could “breaking deep” mean that it hit a submerged obstacle, like a reef? That is, a hole was “broken” in the hole?
“I must leave this planet, if only for an hour.” – Antoine de St. Exupéry
Are you a turtle?
A few years ago, someone in a newsgroup I was frequenting posted this, about her experiences covering the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking for a small paper in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan:
http://www.peak.org/~kightp/scribble/fitz.html
I’ve no idea if this link meets the usual SMDB standards, but I’ll give it a shot.
I used to love this song and one day suddenly realized it is so bad! Of course, it is the theme and story that make it so moving.
For a long discussion from the compuserve sailing forum on the circumstances of the accident check out http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/9886/EdmundFitzgrld.txt
sailor, there was a fair amount of good discussion on that link.
(There were also some people who really had no clue:
The Fitz was 730 feet long–the MacArthur lock is 800 feet. With a summer cargo capacity of just over 30,000 tons,
at that time of year, it would probably have been carrying more like 25,000 tons.
I found the comments about “ineffectively secured holds” to be pretty silly. There is only one way to secure those hatches and the only options available are to dog every clamp or to dog fewer clamps than every one. Had anyone diving on the Fitz found that the crew had left clamps undogged, I’m sure it would have made the news by now.)
That discussion did bring up one of the other speculated reasons for the wreck: In an early interview, the captain (or maybe a mate) from the Anderson had mentioned that the Fitzgeral was sailing farther east than the Anderson, something that the speaker would not want to do because there is a shoal in that area that is exposed in high seas. From that comment, a number of people began speculating that the Fitz broke its back on the shoal and collapsed just beyond in the deeper water where it sank. It makes for fun speculation, but none of the groups who have dived on the wreck have reported signs of bottoming-out on the hull. I also noticed in the linked conversation that there were several snide remarks about the ages of the captain and officers. While that sort of Monday-morning-quarterbacking is common, I have never seen a responsible reporter on the event suggest that they made any really bad decisions. (Even if the shoal story turns out to be true–indicating they gambled wind-shelter from Michipicoten Island against missing the shoal and lost–it is just as likely that they were farther east than they wanted to be because they had already lost both radars, not because of deliberate bad judgment.)
Tom~
It should be noted that Mr. Stan Rogers is also the master of songs about bringing sunken ships back up(The Mary Ellen Carter).
Strange and wonderful
I finally remembered this wreak which was a really ironic disaster.
Novemeber 28, 1905 the ship the Mataafa left the Duluth ship canal and entered Lake Superior.
The weather was so bad that they left the barge it was carrying on the lake and headed back to port.
At the entrance to the Duluth ship canal, it hit the north pier and broke in two. Most of the crew froze to death during the night in the storm a few hundred feet from safety.
The people of Duluth and Superior could only watch as the men froze to death without chance of rescue.
Lo there do I see my father.
Lo there do I see my mother, my sisters, and my brothers.
Lo there do I see the line of my people, back to the begining.
Lo, they do call to me, they bid me take me place among them.
In the Halls of Valhalla, where the Brave, may Live, Forever!
I don’t have a cite for this, but growing up swimming in Lake St. Clair ( the body of water between Lake Huron and Lake Erie) I was told that there were two kinds of frieghters: Lake and Ocean. Ocean ones are longer. Lake ones shorter, due to the punishment of the waves in storms. From what I was told, Ocean storms ( outside of hurricanes) are not as brutal as a lake storm, but it was never explained exactly why. ( I was 12 at the time.)
I dunno if this is correct, but I thought I would pass it along.
That what does not kill me, postpones the inevitable.
My understanding is that the waves in a ‘Lake Storm’ have a shorter wavelength due to the shallower water, which leads to more violent motion and greater stresses on a cargo ship.
Hence the design constraint to keep the ship shorter than an ocean-going ship of the same tonnage.
Bill
Lakers are longer, not shorter, than salties of the same tonnage. Under most conditions, the Great Lakes are not long enough (from shore to shore) to allow the long “period” to build up for waves. (In other words, the distance from the top of one wave to the top of the next wave (or the distance from the bottom of one trough to the bottom of the next trough) is longer on the ocean than on the lakes.) This means that, under normal conditions, a laker can be longer and narrower than its ocean-going counterpart.
Think of it this way: take a piece of paper about four inches by a quarter inch and fold it lengthwise once to give it some stiffness. Now get six magic markers and put them down on a table, parallel to each other, about 3/4 inches apart. Lay the folded paper across the top of them and gently press on the paper between any pair of markers. Now take three of the markers away, and see how much more the paper flexes with the same amount of pressure. Now, fold the paper lengthwise again and see how much pressure it takes for the paper to bend across only three markers.
On the lakes, you have six markers holding up the ship, on the oceans only three. This means that the ocean ship must be built much “thicker” (deeper) than the laker to support itself in a long swell. Lakers can be built “thinner” (not as deep from the keel to the spar deck) and still survive lake conditions.
For comparison, the Interlakes boat Mesabi Miner is 1,004 feet long, 105 feet wide, and 50 feet deep (with a draft of about 28 feet which is all that can get through the Great Lakes rivers. It can carry 63,000 tons of ore. The saltie, Federal Baffin is 623 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 54 feet deep. It carries 43,700 tons. I suspect, however, that it cannot carry 43,000 tons with a draught of 28 feet. Most salties load only partially in the upper lakes, “topping off” with more cargo as they prepare to enter the ocean. (“Depth” is the distance from the keep to the spar deck. “Draught” is the distance from the keel to the water line.)
Note that while both ships are of similar width and depth, that the saltie is only .62 as long as the laker, but is .08 deeper. The laker has a cross-section of 5,250 square feet and the saltie has a cross-section of 5400 square feet. The salties are built to support themselves on the longer ocean waves.
In the Fitzgerald sinking, the Anderson reported being overtaken by a bad squall, accompanied by two or three very large waves (I believe that they were both extra high/deep and extra long), that then moved past it, coming up on the Fitz in the same way. It was this “storm within a storm” that blocked the Fitz from the Anderson’s radar, after which the Fitz never reappeared.
On the other hand, the other point of Shirley’s and Groundskeeper Willie’s post is correct. The shorter period of lake waves do create a lot of stress that can really tear up a ship. One story posted in the link from sailor has been repeated frequently on the lakes: some crusty old saltie comes in snorting “how bad can these mere lakes be?” and goes home with his colon and bladder emptied when he finds out just how bad they can be. (I lost a lot of respect for good old Jacques Cousteau and his whiney Frenchmen when they came through in the late seventies. After they had accepted our hospitality, they went home and moaned about how sailors everywhere else wished each other “good luck” at the beginning of a voyage while people on the lakes offered “have a safe voyage.” Hmmm. Maybe the local yokels know what they’re talking about?)
Tom~