The Edmund Fitzgerald

From: jckniese@francomm.com
Date: Wed Feb 16 2000 - 14:10:51 PST


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        West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
                dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
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Lars S. Mulford wrote:
>
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> West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
> dfarrell@ridgecrest.ca.us
> List hosted by www.tscnet.com
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> Judith Franklin Blumhorst wrote:
>
> > In a keel boat, you depend on waves to roll the boat
> > over enough so that the keel weight does the job of righting the boat. The
> > heavier the keel and the narrower the hull, the less wave action you need to
> > perform the task.
>
> Judy:
>
> This isn't necessarily true and I don't think you can hold all blue water
> cruising designs to this. The 38' Hans Christian owned by friends of ours who
> cruise the coast and points beyond disagree, saying that the sheer weight of the
> keel is what has recovered them from situations like this. Wave action can
> help, but it can also hinder. Making a blanket statement that keel boats depend
> on waves to right the boat is not altogether accurate.
>
> > If I recall correctly, the theory is that Fitzgerald rose up on a wave, dove
> > down the backside, poked her nose through the front of the next wacve and
> > hit her bottom, smashing her hull to pieces. Lake Erie is very shallow in
> > places, causing huge waves when gale winds are blowing across an open fetch.
> > A very dangerous place to be in a storm. .
>
> A couple of problems with this. First, the EF went down on Lake Superior, not
> Lake Erie. There are several theories as to her demise, with one of the most
> accepted being:
>
> She had bottomed out and was taking on water gradually, losing buoyancy
> throughout the storm. And then as she crested one wave and the stern lifted,
> her bow dug into the next and she suffered a catastrophic lose of bouyancy by
> hatchway failures and she went straight to the bottom, breaking in half when she
> hit the bottom from extreme force.
>
> The EF does not sit in shallow water.
>
> --
> "Sea" ya!
>
> --Lars S. Mulford, President
> East Coast Potter Association (ECPA)
> Come visit us at http://members.tripod.com/~SpeedSailor
> s/v Always P15 #2125, lateen rig, sailing greater Chesapeake region
> "Forgive, and live. Life is worth the challenge of living." --LSSM
> "Love is good; Love hurts; Love sustains; Love remains." --LSSM
Go to http://www.oakland.edu/boatnerd/efitz/ to see what happened to the
Edmund Fitzgerald.
Bob
P19#1148
Dovie



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