42 years ago. Still an amazingly evocative song…
The hardest line to hear is “does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours.”
What gets me is;
" when suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’
Fellas it’s too rough to feed ya.
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas my, it’s been good to know ya’.
Werent we just talking about this a few months back? Gosh how time freakin flies!!
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in, he said
“caved in” does make more sense than “gave in”
One of my favorite songs, I was born within 30 miles of Lake Erie and can still remember seeing the iron boats make their way down the Cuyahoga river to the Flats, where the steel mills of Cleveland lay.
There is an ore carrier on display in Cleveland now, not quite as big as “the Fitz”, but showing the type of ship it had been. SS William G. Mather (1925) - Wikipedia
Sault Ste Marie has a sailing museum with artifacts from the ship that were picked up over the years. Or at least it did when I was last there 20+ years ago. Yep still there
This; it’s what I was going to post when I saw the thread/subject.
For an “okay” song (actually, in fairness, it’s probably better than “okay;” it’s just years and years of hearing it that’s worn it down a bit, like LZ’s “Stairway to Heaven” or Bob Seeger’s “Night Moves”), it’s still, to me at least, a powerful lyric.
I’ve been listening to that song daily for about a week.
I rented a cottage on Lake Superior once. One day was cloudy, the lake still, no visible horizon. There was an ore carrier in my view, and it seemed to be suspended in the mist, like a ghost ship. Maybe it was?
All that remains are the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters. . .
Superior is unique in that once you are out in the middle of it on a bulk carrier, in clear weather you cannot see either shore, whereas on all the other Great Lakes, in clear weather you can always see at least one shore. Unlike all the other Great Lakes, a full transit takes a full day. It’s really quite nice being out there.
Unfortunately, the long fetch can lead to some rather fierce winds and high waves. And that’s not nice at all, as evinced by the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The storms of November came early this year at the western end of Superior – Duluth took a bit of a hit at the very end of October.
The museum is definitely worth a visit if you’re anywhere nearby and have any interest in ships, lakes, or the early 20th century.
Not true. In the middle of Lake Michigan, you cannot see either shore. I’ve checked on this more than once. In clear weather.
And let’s not forget the Carl D. Bradley. On November 11th, 1958 it went down on Lake Michigan with the loss of 33 lives. The account of the two who survived is quite gripping.
And again a week later on the 18th. 
whoops, slipped a digit. Off by 1 week.
Back a little over 2 years ago when back at home we got the news that the missing El Faro had gone down, that ran through my mind.
Thanks. You’re right. I just checked a horizon calculator, and you’re not just right – you’re very, very right. Here I thought that our routes had us pretty much chugging down the middle of the lakes, when the horizon math proves that we must have been closer to one shore or the other. Thanks for correcting a misconception that I had held for decades.
That got me googling for the ship I worked on – turns out it is still chugging along, but is due to be retired. It looks like shit. Then I thought that I’m older than it . . . .
That’s cool, and it must be poignant to read about its upcoming retirement.
I’d love to sail on one of the ore boats (as long as I didn’t have to work on it!) I enter all the contests to try to win a cruise but no luck so far.
The Mrs. and I did tour the Valley Camp in Saulte Ste. Marie earlier this year, and that was fascinating.
Are you on Boatnerd?
There’s a line about how they would have made Whitefish Bay if they’d put 15 more miles behind her. Isn’t that still a long distance to go? How fast was the Edmund Fitzgerald going?
According to Wikipedia its top speed was 14 knots or 16 miles per hour. I thought I had read or heard it was 17 but I guess that’s close enough. So yeah, they were AT LEAST an hour from safety. And with the storm and the water taken on, they were probably not going top speed anyway.
I’m a big Lightfoot fan and I’ve read about, or looked at video for years about this ship. And I’ve been to the museum and spent the night at Whitefish Point in the restored Coast Guard Building.
Because they had lost their radar, they slowed down at some point to allow the Arthur Anderson to catch up a bit. That was the ship that was trailing and guiding them but it was a slower boat. Its Captain (Jesse Cooper) is the one who sounded the alarm when they went off radar. And to his credit, although he at first was reluctant, he and his crew went back out in the storm to help in a possible rescue after they had already made safe harbor.
It’s one of those tunes that’s not in ballad meter, but you can sing the lyrics of any song in ballad meter to its tune.
Can’t say it improves any of them, though.
Vessel finder — that’s a cool site.
It’s like plane finder. It’s interesting to see the distribution of planes and ships around the world.
Plane finder: https://planefinder.net/
Vessel finder: https://www.vesselfinder.com/
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
In the maritime sailors’ cathedral
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald