The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

By Thomas E. Moorhead

Peter L. Waters has just finished his first year of law school at the University of Michigan. With the help of Jamie, Peters bride-to-be, he lands a great summer job aboard the Great Lakes freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald. Determined to give his future bride the wedding of her dreams, Peter decides to skip the fall semester at law school to work aboard the ship. If all goes well, the bonus hell earn will pay for their wedding and launch their new life in style.

The decision will cost him his life.

Based on the actual sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which occurred on November 10, 1975, the last days and hours of the crew membersincluding the captain, first mate, cook, a father-and-son engine room team, a lawyer-hating deckhand, and Peterare imagined in this work of contemporary fiction based on a tragic reality in Michigans history.

The Edmund Fitzgerald slipped below the waves that fateful November night in 1975, and her story remains one of great sorrow and mystery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462041138

Thomas E. Moorhead

Thomas E. Moorhead, the president and Founder of RealChek, LLC, a nationwide service for landlords, has been an attorney since 1974. He is the author of the Owners Manual for Landlords and Property Managers, a nonfiction guide on real-estate law. He and his wife have two adult children and live in Michigan.

Book preview

The Wreck

of the

Edmund Fitzgerald

black.jpg

Thomas E. Moorhead

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Copyright © 2011 by Thomas E. Moorhead.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4620-4112-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-4115-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-4113-8 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011913263

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 09/22/2011

Contents

Author’s Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Author’s Note

This is a work of fiction, based on the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which occurred approximately 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay, Michigan, sometime after 7:15 p.m. on November 10, 1975.

The characters in this novel are fictional. There were no survivors or witnesses to the sinking.

My interest in the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald began on a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, when I first heard Gordon Lightfoot’s song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I was moved by the song and thought about the lives lost.

This book is offered in memory of the crew who lost their lives on the evening of November 10, 1975, as well as their families and loved ones.

Chapter One

November 9 was early for such a violent storm. Even Lake Superior, located farther north than the other Great Lakes, should have bearable weather through late November. But she didn’t.

The storm had intensified as she passed over the Oklahoma Panhandle on November 8. Still, it seemed to be a typical November storm. She continued to increase in strength, however, as she roared over east-central Iowa and headed toward Wisconsin. By 7:00 p.m. on November 9, the National Weather Service had issued gale warnings for all of Lake Superior.

Superior had lost most of her cold blue color, as her waves climbed toward the sky and then plunged into deep valleys. She was frothy white when her waves fell and gray-green, as though she were seasick, when the waves died down.

The heavy black and gray clouds roared across the sky like a freight train, completely blocking the horizon. The dividing line between the clouds and the water had disappeared. The churning surface of Lake Superior seemed to reach up like fingers, in a useless effort to slap away the clouds.

Of the Great Lakes, Superior is truly the greatest. She is the largest body of fresh water on the entire surface of the earth. Her length exceeds 380 miles and her width is 160 miles. Her depths sink to over 1,333 feet. Setting aside numbers, consider that Lake Superior could easily drown the entire state of South Carolina.

There are days—well worth waiting for even in November—when she shows her beauty. She could reflect a thousand shades of red, orange, and purple, as the sun disappears beyond her shores. Out on the open water, it is like being caught in the middle of a rainbow. Copper-rich mountains bank her northern shore, as if God added a crowning touch to His masterpiece.

But she is also the coldest of the Great Lakes and oftentimes the most dangerous. A man overboard in her cold waters would die within fifteen minutes. According to the sailors on Lake Superior, the life vest has only one use: to help recover the body.

As the days shorten and winter approaches, Lake Superior starts to close down the shipping season for freighters. She will succeed before the other Great Lakes do.

Chapter Two

Plowing through the raging waters of Lake Superior was the ore freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald. The freighter was working its way toward the dock, to be loaded with taconite ore. It was fighting for every inch of forward motion. Three times, the captain (also known as the master), a seasoned veteran of the Great Lakes, who liked to assume absolute control over his freighter, had positioned the Fitzgerald to pull into the third dock for loading. Each time, the rolling waves pushed the freighter off course.

The roar of the straining 7,500-horsepower steam turbine located deep in the freighter’s belly could still be heard over the roar of the wind and the waves. The freighter was slamming against the waves at a 90-degree angle, which made it almost impossible for the captain to navigate his ship.

As the Fitzgerald pushed past the dock, the captain slammed the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. He uncharacteristically swore to himself, softly.

After maneuvering his freighter back into position, he guided it to a 45-degree angle, pushing toward the wind. After changing course eight degrees, the wind pushed the Fitzgerald into the dock. He didn’t want to be in the number-one dock because it was exposed to almost as much weather as on the lake.

The freighter’s forward motion eased to a stop. The rolling and swaying would not stop, however, as long as the waves continued. This made the freighter into a kind of perpetual-motion machine. Large rope lines were heaved from the freighter to the docks. At the Great Northern Ore docks located on the Northwest shore of Lake Superior in Superior, Wisconsin, the crew expertly secured the lines to the pilings.

Each of the four loading docks was over 2,250 feet long and more than 80 feet high. The size was necessary to accommodate the Great Lake freighters. Large silo-type storage bins lined each side of the docks. From these bins, the ore was released through large chutes into the cargo hold of the waiting freighter.

As the Fitzgerald came to a rest, Captain William L. Reynolds eased his strong grip on the oak steering wheel. His large knuckles were regaining their normal tanned, weathered look.

It was the captain, rather than the wheelman, who handled all arrivals and departures from the docks.

Reynolds had taken on the true look of a captain. His full-grown brown beard was slowly yielding to the streaks of gray that formed a kind of window-pane design across his square jaw. His pipe was ever present in his mouth. His beard covered half his pipe and seemed to twist around the stem like a wild, sweet pea climbing a chain-linked fence. His forehead was etched with lines, which appeared to be from the constant exposure to the weather, but the real reason for which was the pressures of his job. He wore his captain’s hat all the time, after his hair had begun to thin. His large frame stood over six foot three. His 245 pounds was 20 pounds more than he wanted to weigh and 35 pounds more than his doctor recommended.

He would rub his dark brown, almost black eyes, with his large index finger more by habit than out of necessity.

The captain’s voice could be heard booming off every part of the freighter. His commands were issued in a loud, authoritative voice. He had been a Great Lakes captain for over 38 years, the only captain the SS Edmund Fitzgerald had ever known.

He described his freighter as an engineering masterpiece. She was slab-sized and box-shaped, to maximize cargo space and still be able to pass through the Soo Locks.¹ The straight, unbroken decks eased dockside loading, making the