It is late fall - a time for storms and storm stories on Lake Superior. This year especially, 30 years since the great Edmund Fitzgerald sank and took its brave crew with it, causes reflection on the lake’s power.
We may never fully know what took down the 730-foot Fitzgerald
on the fateful night of November 10, 1975, near Whitefish Bay. The U.S.
Coast Guard officially blames “ineffective hatch closures” for massive
flooding of the cargo hold. A good friend and knowledgeable captain,
Dudley Paquette, was on Wilfred Sykes that night and suspects stress damage resulted in a hull fracture that drove the Fitz to the bottom.
I have been partial to the theory that after losing major navigational tools, the Fitz fatally scraped Six-Fathom Shoal near Caribou Island.
A fourth theory says the Fitz was overwhelmed by the Three Sisters, that triple hit of waves long held by sailors to wreck boats.
None knows for certain but the lake itself.
I, too, have weathered a few blows on Lake Superior. I never
tempted such encounters; prudence has served me well. But sometimes
storms find you no matter how cautious you are.
I recall one time in particular, near the famed Whitefish
Point, when we were chased by the lake’s fury on the way to a Great
Lakes Cruising Club gathering.…
We had crossed most of Lake Superior and with less than 50 miles to the Sault Ste. Marie locks, our Skipper Sam was doing quite well.
Just then I happened to notice the very black clouds. The weather would soon change - violently.
Yes, we were being followed by a storm, and it was a big one.
Conditions deteriorated, the former brisk breezes becoming significant
winds. The seas came up at about the same time. Addressing my wife,
Jan, and Stan and Sally, our dependable crew, I said that we would
headquarter in the main cabin. “Please lay out four lifejackets,” I
requested, just in case.
In no time, Stan had the lifejackets out. Our Skipper Sam
sensed the changing weather, and the increasing seas confirmed the
boat’s concerns. About this time, the radio began carrying a weather
warning. Winds came from behind us, the seas now several feet high.
“Oh nuts,” I thought, realizing that we had to slow a bit to match the increasingly violent waves and wind.
Ken Thommes
Our Sam is reasonably comfortable even in significant
seas, but we would be challenged if the weather continued to
deteriorate. Whitefish Point, our first landmark, fell astern. Isle
Pariseanne, our next major mark, lay to the left. As we passed by, one
of the more excited waves literally washed off old Sam, from
the roof down. This would be the time to don our life jackets, I
suggested, while we could make sure that they fit. Still, our hopes
were running as high as the waves that we could outrun the storm to
safe harbor.
Ahead lay the narrowing final channel to the locks at Sault
Ste. Marie. I’d traveled the channel on the deck of ore boats, but here
we were in high winds, bad weather and on our 50-foot Skipper Sam. A flash of lightning was followed immediately by the thunder; we were in the heart of this storm.
We made it into the locks, but the lake wasn’t done with us. The U.S. flag that always flies from Sam’s stern whipped in a frenzy that tangled Jan, working the lines in back.
Once in St. Marys River, the challenges continued. We had
reserved a slip at the Roberta Bondar Marina, but we were radioed that
it was too rough to tie up. Go, we were told, to the then-unused
Canadian lock until the storm passed. In the lock we joined a few dozen
other boats weathering the storm.
Eventually, we watched the winds die down with sincere
appreciation. My knees finally quit knocking, and we spent a delightful
weekend with boaters who knew, as I do, how wondrous and powerful our
lake really is.
The second edition of Shipwrecks of Lake Superior,
edited by Jim Marshall, has recently been published. And a selection of
Jim Marshall’s columns of lake lore and his inland sea voyages
has been published as Lake Superior Journal: Views from the Bridge
by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. Follow this link
for more information.
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