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These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

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Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#31

Post by atourgates »

This was interesting:

> Still, Mixter and the team were labeled "ghouls and pirates," and "the state of Michigan actually passed a law against recording bodies on shipwrecks that are less than 50 years old," he said.

Assumedly, as of today, the Edmund Fitzgerald has aged out of that law?

The latest episode of the NYTimes book review podcast [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sinking-of-the-edm...] is a really interesting interview with John U. Bacon who just wrote a book on the Edmund Fitzgerald, called The Gales of November. Quite interesting if, like me, you didn't know anything about the historical event beyond the song.

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#32

Post by cassepipe »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #27

“We’re holding our own” - Captain McSorley., 7:10pm, 5 minutes before contact was reported lost. Seemingly more a story of patriarchal arrogance than force of nature.

That may be the case but that seems unfair from that statement alone. It could just as well be some kind of way to keep panic at bay at a time where you need all your wits. Couldn't that lead you to underestimate the danger you are in ? And that's not even accounting interpretation errors under stress and unknown unknowns.

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#33

Post by RA_Fisher »

cassepipe wrote: post #32
RA_Fisher wrote: post #27

“We’re holding our own” - Captain McSorley., 7:10pm, 5 minutes before contact was reported lost. Seemingly more a story of patriarchal arrogance than force of nature.

That may be the case but that seems unfair from that statement alone. It could just as well be some kind of way to keep panic at bay at a time where you need all your wits. Couldn't that lead you to underestimate the danger you are in ? And that's not even accounting interpretation errors under stress and unknown unknowns.

> On the fateful evening of November 10, 1975, McSorley reported he had never seen bigger seas in his life.[70] Paquette, captain of Wilfred Sykes, out in the same storm, said, "I'll tell anyone that it was a monster sea washing solid water over the deck of every vessel out there."[172] The USCG did not broadcast that all ships should seek safe anchorage until after 3:35 p.m. on November 10, many hours after the weather was upgraded from a gale to a storm.[55] McSorley was known as a "heavy weather captain"[173] who, according to George Burgner, "'beat hell' out of the Fitzgerald and 'very seldom ever hauled up for weather'".[140] Paquette held the opinion that negligence caused Edmund Fitzgerald to founder. He said, "in my opinion, all the subsequent events arose because (McSorley) kept pushing that ship and didn't have enough training in weather forecasting to use common sense and pick a route out of the worst of the wind and seas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#34

Post by kwk1 »

jacquesm wrote: post #9

I lived on an Island in Lake Huron for about 5 years and went visiting the Lake Superior area many times. To call it a lake does not really do it justice: it's an inland sea, and a most impressive one. I've seen the lake from the shore in more than one storm and it didn't look any different than the ocean, except that it seemed in many ways more violent. I asked the locals about it and they said that the lake is more…

From Moby Dick, on the Great Lakes:

> they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AMoby-Dick_(1851)_US_ed...

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#35

Post by jacquesm »

trillic wrote: post #12
mallomarmeasle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for that, super interesting about sieches. A standing wave not directly from the moon or waves.From the wiki: Lake seiches can occur very quickly: on July 13, 1995, a large seiche on Lake Superior caused the water level to fall and then rise again by one metre (three feet) within fifteen minutes, leaving some boats hanging from the docks on their mooring lines when the water retreated

In Chicago I’ve observed and measured a consistent 0.8kn (1.48 km/hr) current set flowing north after a long week of consistent breezes out of the north. The water just piles up in the shallow end of the lake and when the breeze dies that water needs to go somewhere. Lake Michigan has the least turnover of all the lakes and when thinking about predicting current on it it’s good to imagine a 300 mile long bathtub.

> it’s good to imagine a 300 mile long bathtub

Harrods was destroyed by the Vogons.

Hilarious comment, thank you. Now I will have to go and see every bathtub from now on as a tiny Lake Michigan...

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#36

Post by eszed »

mi100hael wrote: post #15
blutack wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably also open circuit not rebreather given this was mid 90s. It's a pity the article doesn't detail their dive plan, the gas quantities must have been staggering. Nowadays this type of diving would be done using an eCCR (and backup open circuit), where some software on a microcontroller controls the amount of oxygen in a breathing loop. A scrubber (hopefully) removes the CO2. Changing the gas mixture as you go…

There's more detail on the dive in this account: https://cambrianfoundation.org/2000/02/28/1995-expedition/

This one says twelve minutes of exploration at the bottom.

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#37

Post by cassepipe »

RA_Fisher wrote: post #33
cassepipe wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be the case but that seems unfair from that statement alone. It could just as well be some kind of way to keep panic at bay at a time where you need all your wits. Couldn't that lead you to underestimate the danger you are in ? And that's not even accounting interpretation errors under stress and unknown unknowns.

> On the fateful evening of November 10, 1975, McSorley reported he had never seen bigger seas in his life.[70] Paquette, captain of Wilfred Sykes, out in the same storm, said, "I'll tell anyone that it was a monster sea washing solid water over the deck of every vessel out there."[172] The USCG did not broadcast that all ships should seek safe anchorage until after 3:35 p.m. on November 10, many hours after the weat…

You do make a good case for your claim ! You swayed me. Masculine recklessness-as-toughness, also known as patriarchal arrogance, seems indeed to have sunk that ship.

Re: These Men dove to the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck decades ago. Their stories

#38

Post by RA_Fisher »

cassepipe wrote: post #37
RA_Fisher wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the fateful evening of November 10, 1975, McSorley reported he had never seen bigger seas in his life.[70] Paquette, captain of Wilfred Sykes, out in the same storm, said, "I'll tell anyone that it was a monster sea washing solid water over the deck of every vessel out there."[172] The USCG did not broadcast that all ships should seek safe anchorage until after 3:35 p.m. on November 10, many hours after the weat…

You do make a good case for your claim ! You swayed me. Masculine recklessness-as-toughness, also known as patriarchal arrogance, seems indeed to have sunk that ship.

Thank you. :) I try to be careful with my claims, but when I find a big one I don’t shy away from it.

Yeah, reducing patriarchal arrogance is a major opportunity for improvement in our societies.

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