"The Edmund Fitzgerald (the largest Great Lakes freighter when she was launched June 7, 1958, and also the largest to ever sink in the Great Lakes) was known as a “workhorse” and set seasonal haul records 6 times, often breaking her own records. The Big Fitz was 729 feet long and her beam 75 feet. As the largest freighter on the Great Lakes she was depended upon to fulfill her shipping commitments no matter the weather, no matter the conditions. The storms that come in November are some of the most dreadful on the planet, but despite these perils, The Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wis., fully loaded with her last delivery of the season. One final trip in 1975 before docking for good that winter."
One of Gordon Lightfoot's best songs ever. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
I grew up on an island on Lake Erie (the shallowest of all the Great Lakes, with it's share of shipwrecks too). And at 14/15yo I was once sailing in the middle of Lake Erie (as crew), beyond sight of all land, in a terrible storm that had the top of the mast laying in the water with the waves crashing over us, working the deck of a 31 foot sailboat. The foresail would not come down in the high wind, and I had to lay in the bow-pulpit and pull it down.
Same make and model boat. Viking 31
