Edmund Fitzgerald
1958
(California Models CA-5)
- Type: Great Lakes ore boat
- Displacement: 13,632 grt
- Dimensions: 729 x 75 x 26 ft.
- Machinery: Steam turbine, twin screw, 7,500 SHP = 25 knots
- Passengers: 7
- Crew: 29
- Builder: Great Lakes Engineering Works, River Rouge, Michigan, 1958
- Notes: Named for the chairman of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co of Milwaukee, which owned the ship. At the time of her launch she was the largest ore carrier ever built on the Great Lakes. She was assembled from welded prefabricated steel sections. Known as the "Queen of the Lakes" she was operated by the Columbia Transportation Co, a division of Oglebay Norton Co, which leased her from NW Mutual. She carried 25,000 tons of ore per trip from Minnesota through the Soo locks to Detroit for 18 years. On Sunday 9 Nov 1975 she sailed from Superior, WI bound for Detroit on the last planned voyage of the season. That night, hurricane force winds came up from the north, kicking up 30-foot waves. She was about 13 miles north of Whitefish Point, MI, when she sank suddenly a little after 1910 hours. None of her crew were ever found, and the exact reasons for her lost were never established. Her story was immortalized in a ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, "The Loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
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