Sailing & Maritime Thread

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Northbound at Kenner Bend on Lower Mississippi River​

Oct 7, 2025


8:33
 

After lunch, boat walk around on the Lower Mississippi River October 8, 2025​


7:33
 

Sister vessels on Mississippi River waiting at river closure September 22, 2025​


6:20
 
Container Ship | Cabin Tour

Oct 22, 2025
Some of you asked to see my cabin on my most recent ship, so this is just a short tour.
Enjoy😎🚢⚓️🌊🐋


4:57
 
Lotta old pics here. Click on gallery. May take a few secs to load.

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searcher said:
Click to expand...

I think I touched on this a few weeks back, on another thread.

Nonetheless...the Fitz matters, but the way it matters is being ignored.

It shows the deceit of Officialdom; and of how frantically people - some vested into the Narrative, some not - how hard they cling to a pleasing, if untrue, picture.

IMHO, having read up on this for 50 years (a neighbor of ours went down on it; our families weren't close but it fueled my macabre fascination)...what I've learned and come to conclude, is this:

--Fitz was overloaded. Cleveland-Cliffs' oversight agency, whoever it was, waved a magic want and thereby increased the hull's capacity. No modification had been made.

--The ship was not derelict but a lot of maintenance had been deferred. The crew had made mention of it to families, individually.

--The navigation chart the ship was using had Six Fathom Shoal marked in the wrong location. This was learned later. I'm not sure if the officers were aware of the error.

--Sitting low, with the radar out, with a bad chart - AND bobbing around in the midst of gale-force winds - they are believed to have gone right over the shoal, and probably grounded hard. With all the other commotion going on, they may not have felt it.

--Shortly later, they began a list and the captain called in the ship was taking on water. He believed, over the cargo hatches.

--Same transmission, he reported he had "a railing down." That is not a trivial event. This happens when the hull is distorted, usually because of imminent failure. A railing breaking, means the ship is hogging. A railing going slack and coming down, means the ship is sagging. Both indicate keel failure and separation of the hull.

So, overloaded, swamping, listing, and with a keel damaged or broken, the nose of the ship went into one of those giant waves' troughs; and the forces combined, probably broke the ship apart. The stern section rolled over. The forward part did not; it probably jammed right into mud at the bottom before the stern completely separated.

I do not know what improvements have been made for safety on the Great Lakes. Surely, weathertight lifeboats. Probably, more durable radar equipment, as well as sounding apparatuses. Charts need not be carried; they almost-certainly can be seen in real time, with all updates, on Wi-Fi or satellite.

The Fitzgerald is but one of many, many Great Lakes shipwrecks - many occurring about the time of the close of season, in November. The public fascination with this one of course, is due only to Gordon Lightfoot's dirge.
 
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