Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407040083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: TRAVERSE CITY, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
This month, two separate expeditions plan to search the ship's grave, 556 feet under water, for new clues.
The first three-day mission, beginning today, is part of a scientific study of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River ecosystem. Fred Shannon, a Michigan television documentary producer, plans an expedition July 26-28.
"We hope to search areas nobody's looked at before, for anything at all that may lead to answering the question," said Tom Farnquist, director of the Great Lakes Historical Society and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point. He will participate in the first dive.
"I liken it to a moon walk," said Shannon, for whom solving the mystery is a personal crusade. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
The only other manned dive to the Fitzgerald was a brief visit in 1980 by colleagues of Jacques Cousteau. The Coast Guard sent a camera-equipped robot vehicle to the site in 1976; a private research team did likewise in 1989. Each dive produced more details and speculation, but no answers.
A storm was brewing Nov. 9, 1975, as the Fitzgerald left Superior, Wis., for Detroit, carrying 26,000 tons of taconite ore pellets.
The next day, a gale hammered the freighter with 30-foot waves and winds exceeding 90 mph. Capt. Ernest McSorley reported topside damage and said his ship was listing but issued no distress call.
"We are holding our own," McSorley radioed at 7:10 p.m. to the Arthur M. Anderson, another ship crossing the lake.
Moments later, the Fitzgerald disappeared from radar screens - only 15 miles from the safe haven of Whitefish Bay in the lake's southeastern corner.
Searchers found scattered debris, but nothing else. No bodies were ever found; the 29 crewmen are believed to be entombed inside the wreckage.
On the morning of Nov. 11, Richard W. Ingalls, rector of the Mariners' Church of Detroit, tolled its bell 29 times.
Canadian songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, himself a Great Lakes sailor, read newspaper accounts of Ingalls' tribute and composed the mournful ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," which notched the ship a place in American folklore.
In the close-knit Great Lakes maritime fraternity, the Fitzgerald remains an almost mystical symbol of the sometimes perilous life on volatile inland seas. The sinking was so sudden, so baffling.
To Joseph MacInnis, the Canadian scientist leading this week's dive, the Fitzgerald is "the Titanic of the Great Lakes."
Retired Coast Guard Capt. Jimmie Hobaugh, who led the fruitless search for survivors, said, "If you're a sailor, you realize . . . it could have been you on board that ship."
In a 1977 report, the Coast Guard said the ship probably sank from the weight of water leaking into cargo holds through ineffective hatch coverings. The ship lost buoyancy and nose-dived into a huge wave, the report said.
Others speculate the Fitzgerald rammed a poorly charted shoal and ripped the hull hours before it sank. Another possibility: A hatch completely gave way, allowing sudden, catastrophic flooding.
The first mission will be aboard Clelia, a three-person submarine being used in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence research program. MacInnis proposed the Fitzgerald visit to draw attention to the project, which he hopes will produce a TV special about the region's fragile environment.
The second dive is a personal project of Shannon, a Mount Morris entrepreneur who has researched the Fitzgerald for more than a decade. He has contracted with Delta Oceanographics of Oxnard, Calif., to use its research submarine, the Delta.
"My expedition will approach the site as if it were a crime scene," said Shannon, who's writing a book about the sinking.
\ THE EDMUND FITZGERALD "THE TITANIC OF THE GREAT LAKES"
Sank Nov. 10, 1975, in fierce storm on Lake Superior. Wreckage 17 miles off Whitefish Point on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. All 29 crewmen died.
At 729 feet, the Fitzgerald was the largest bulk carrier ever built for Great Lakes service when launched in 1958. Carried taconite ore pellets.
Owned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Milwaukee and named in honor of its former president. Fitzgerald was haunted by the loss of namesake ship until his death in 1986, his son said.
The disaster inspired the Gordon Lightfoot ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Memorial service held each November at Mariners' Church of Detroit. AP
by CNB