Patrick Durkin: Time to set the record straight on the Edmund Fitzgerald

If you’re looking for ways to commemorate the 51st anniversary of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking on Lake Superior, you’ll find many options across the Great Lakes region. Whether it’s tributes, fundraisers, memorial services or presentations about “what really happened” to the ship and its crew Nov. 10, 1975, you’ll find forums scheduled at churches, schools, museums and civic meeting rooms.

Interest in the shipwreck hasn’t faded since last year’s 50th anniversary. Everyone on Facebook or Instagram can watch videos of waves breaking on icy cliffs and ships plowing through white-peaked seas. All of them feature Gordon Lightfoot’s epic 1976 song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” That maritime masterpiece inspires most of the fascination. It’s not just another sea ballad about lost sailors, sunken ships and widow’s walks.

But not everyone recognized the song’s enduring power a half-century ago on Nov. 20, 1976, when it peaked at No. 2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 songs list, behind Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night.”

Rod Stewart?

“Tonight’s the Night?”

What were music lovers thinking?

Surely music’s professionals got things right Feb. 19, 1977, at the 19th annual Grammy Awards. Right?

Nope. Lightfoot’s ballad was one of five nominees for song of the year, but it lost to “I Write the Songs,” written by Bruce Johnston and sung by Barry Manilow.

Yeesh. Shudder.

OK, but Lightfoot won a Grammy for best male pop vocal performance for his song, right? Nope. Stevie Wonder won it for his album, “Songs in the Key of Life.”

Hmm. Well, that’s a little more understandable. Except in these parts.

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We also respectfully note that Lightfoot took a little poetic license when writing his song weeks after the tragedy. Yes, the “Maritime Sailors Cathedral” is actually the Mariners Church of Detroit. And yes, his lyrics later described the church as “rustic” after folks found the original “musty” unfair. And true, the Fitzgerald was bound for Detroit’s Zug Island when it sank, not Cleveland. Lightfoot later joked that he tried using Toledo, another common Fitzgerald destination, but that didn’t rhyme, either.

So let’s set things straight about the tragic end of this 729-foot ore carrier and its 29-man crew. The big ship didn’t stray onto “6 Fathom Shoals,” bottom out on rocks 36 feet below and punch mortal wounds into its hull.

A joint U.S. Navy/U.S. Coast Guard survey of the wreck in May 1976, as well as follow-up explorations, found no gashes, damage or other evidence of grounding on the Fitzgerald’s overturned stern 530 feet deep and 17 miles northwest of Whitefish Point. And when Coast Guard divers searched the shoals near Caribou Island 35 miles west of there, they found no debris, paint scrapes or other damning evidence.

In fact, a precise hydrographic survey later found that the “6 Fathom Shoals” didn’t exist as shown on earlier nautical charts. Further, a 1978 National Transportation Safety Board report found no shoal water within 3 miles of the Fitzgerald’s probable track.

Ric Mixter, a diver, historian and documentarian who inspected the shipwreck in a submersible in July 1994, also dismisses the shoaling theory.

“It’s ridiculous to suggest it ever happened,” Mixter told me in a 2025 interview. “Not a single ship has ever hit a shoal in that area.”

To explain the sinking, study the Fitzgerald’s deck and its 21 monstrous 11-by-48-foot cargo hatches. Even though Lightfoot changed his lyrics in 2010 to absolve the captain and crew of negligence, he shouldn’t have felt guilty for singing “At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in” the previous 34 years.

His original lines got it right. Photos of the wreck showed several hatch covers missing or punched in. They hadn’t withstood the weight and force of waves crashing across the Fitzgerald’s deck. Their design could only handle up to 4 feet of standing water without buckling, but estimates said the storm steadily sent upward of 12 feet of water crashing across the Fitzgerald’s deck.

But even if no hatch covers collapsed, the ship might not have survived the storm’s 25- to 35-foot seas and 75- to 86-mph wind gusts. Coast Guard Cmdr. C.S. Loosmore, who served on the 1977 Marine Board investigating the sinking, believed loose hatch clamps, faulty gaskets, and gaps between hatch covers and coamings (18-inch walls surrounding each hatch) leaked enough in those conditions to fully flood the Fitzgerald’s cargo hold in three hours.

The 1978 NTSB report noted that Great Lakes captains in that era “believed the weight of the hatch cover alone, about 14,000 pounds, would make the cover watertight. Calculations indicate more than 178,000 pounds is required.” But to properly seal a hatch cover’s gasket, “each of the 68 clamps on Fitzgerald’s covers must apply about 2,400 pounds of force.”

Unfortunately, evidence shows that the covers weren’t properly clamped. Many hatch clamps, spaced 2 feet apart, were left off or loosely fastened. The report stated: “Captain (Ernest) McSorley may have ensured the Fitzgerald hatches were dogged closed … but evidence of improper clamp adjustment (was found) at hatch No. 5, where the hatch cover is missing, and only two of 16 consecutive hatch clamps are damaged. Had (those 14 undamaged) clamps been properly adjusted, they would have all been damaged or the hatch would have remained in place.”

McSorley also reported two missing vent covers and damage to the ship’s topside rail at 3:30 p.m. that day. The covers protected 8-inch diameter pipes leading to ballast tanks below. Investigators think the missing covers let boarding waters flood two ballast tanks faster than the ship’s pumps could remove it, causing the starboard list McSorley reported.

Further, the final cargo of taconite pellets totaled roughly 4,000 more tons (8 million pounds) than the Fitzgerald was designed to carry. That caused the Fitzgerald to ride 3 feet, 3.25 inches deeper than designs specified when it was built in the mid-1950s. That put the ship’s main deck within 11.5 feet of the water instead of 14.75 feet.

As captain, McSorley knew all that, but he still drove the Fitzgerald hard in all weather to deliver its cargo on time. As captain, he knew he was solely responsible for his ship’s care, crew and mission. Ship captains can delegate specific jobs to junior officers and crew, but they can’t delegate any of their responsibilities.

Therefore, although McSorley was liked by his crew, respected by his employers, and recognized as an expert helmsman and navigator, he bears ultimate responsibility for the tragedy.

And he’s why Lake Superior now sings in every room of the Fitzgerald, its ice-water mansion.

Contact Patrick Durkin at patrick
durkin56@gmail.com.