In remembrance.....
Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial
Going to be a stormy night up there......somehow fitting.
Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial
Going to be a stormy night up there......somehow fitting.
Edmund Fitzgerald
- Thread starter prairiedruid
- Start date
And here's the guy who wrote the song, Gordon Lightfoot.
According to the ssedmundfitzgerald.org Website, the ship weighed 13,632 tons (27,264,000 lbs.) empty. At the time of the wreck it was carrying 26,116 long tons (58,500,020 lbs.) of taconite pellets. If my arithmetic is correct, then the cargo's weight exceed that of the ship by 31,236,020 lbs.! I don't know about you, but it is hard for me to conceive how it could even have floated given such a disparity.
It's the Displacement Tonnage that keeps you afloat, not the Dead-Weight Tonnage.
I can't believe Gordon Lightfoot wrote that song early in 1975,only months after the wreck. We saw Gordon perform it life a few months ago at a small local theater. Sadly, he couldn't sing, and could barely walk, I felt sorry for him the length of the show.
My late wife and I picnicked at the monument at White Fish Point for the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Great Lakes really are an inland sea and pose all of the dangers of the ocean. The fact that ships are never hundreds of miles from land should never obscure the many hazards of weather and water temperature that are inherent on The Lakes. I love the song. "Been good to know ya'," a great line.
I was in college at Northern Michigan University at Marquette, on the south side of Lake Superior. It was indeed a dark and stormy night. That winter was particularly nasty as I recall.
Another homage to the Fitz, the Great Lakes Brewery in Cleveland carries a Edmund Fitzgerald Porter which is mighty delicious and pairs well with heartfelt balladry.
