214: The Mighty Fitz III – Its a Lock Fact!

Episode Transcript

[0:00:04 – 0:00:05] UNKNOWN: Woo!
[0:00:38 – 0:00:39] Adam: Me?
[0:00:39 – 0:00:39] Adam: You?
[0:00:39 – 0:00:40] Adam: I think it’s you.
[0:00:40 – 0:00:41] Adam: Oh, it’s me!
[0:00:41 – 0:00:45] Adam: I don’t know what episode we’re on, but I do have the sunset written down this time.
[0:00:45 – 0:00:48] Erik: Okay, well, we’re spoiling all of our secrets here.
[0:00:48 – 0:00:50] Erik: It’s Tumble Home.
[0:00:50 – 0:00:51] Erik: My name’s Eric.
[0:00:52 – 0:00:58] Erik: Being bequeathed ever so graciously the intro by my fine, fine…
[0:00:59 – 0:01:23] Erik: fine friend frederick stonehouse frederick stonehouse aka kurt russell from the thing with the amount of steam coming out of your mouth and frost hanging from your glasses it’s almost like we’re recording in some kind of a scientific bio lab yeah i like the picture we’re in like one of them uh you know units on the south pole
[0:01:24 – 0:01:24] Adam: Oh, one of those.
[0:01:24 – 0:01:26] Adam: Like a shipping container.
[0:01:26 – 0:01:27] Erik: South Pole onesies.
[0:01:27 – 0:01:30] Adam: Just one little satellite dish on the roof.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:31] Adam: Yes.
[0:01:31 – 0:01:32] Adam: That’s where we’re at.
[0:01:32 – 0:01:33] Adam: Basically, yeah.
[0:01:34 – 0:01:35] Adam: We’re coming to you live from the tumble shed here.
[0:01:35 – 0:01:36] Adam: It is cold.
[0:01:37 – 0:01:42] Adam: The heater’s been running, but you wouldn’t be able to tell because there’s zero insulation in the shed.
[0:01:42 – 0:01:47] Erik: Yeah, it’s hard to say whether or not the heater is doing anything besides providing mental support.
[0:01:48 – 0:01:53] Adam: It’s a really big shanty, and this is a shanty heater, so it’s going to take a while.
[0:01:54 – 0:01:54] Erik: Yeah.
[0:01:54 – 0:01:59] Erik: No, I was saying that it feels like we are in the third act of Apollo 13.
[0:01:59 – 0:02:05] Erik: Besides floating and anti-gravity, it feels like we’re in the lamb right now.
[0:02:06 – 0:02:11] Erik: And the computers are struggling to stay alive.
[0:02:12 – 0:02:17] Erik: But the one computer that is plugged currently, quote unquote, recording what I’m saying right now,
[0:02:18 – 0:02:19] Erik: Is plugged in.
[0:02:19 – 0:02:21] Erik: Says it’s charging, but the battery is at 0%.
[0:02:21 – 0:02:23] Erik: We’re right on the edge.
[0:02:23 – 0:02:24] Adam: Right on the edge.
[0:02:26 – 0:02:30] Adam: We’re one fathom off in either direction from this completely imploding.
[0:02:31 – 0:02:37] Erik: Yeah, we’ll bounce off into the nothingness of space with Kevin Bacon all chilled.
[0:02:37 – 0:02:40] Erik: And who’s the other guy who’s sick in the corner?
[0:02:41 – 0:02:41] Erik: Paxton.
[0:02:42 – 0:02:42] Erik: Paxton.
[0:02:42 – 0:02:45] Erik: Yeah, Paxton’s all cold and chilled.
[0:02:45 – 0:02:46] Erik: He needs to get off.
[0:02:46 – 0:02:47] Adam: He needs to go see a twister.
[0:02:48 – 0:02:49] Erik: Yeah, right.
[0:02:49 – 0:02:50] Erik: Just think about this guy.
[0:02:50 – 0:02:52] Erik: He’s just came, just got off.
[0:02:53 – 0:02:53] Erik: What a life.
[0:02:54 – 0:03:04] Erik: Yeah, just got out of an emergency space mission and then ends up in the fields of Kentucky.
[0:03:04 – 0:03:05] Adam: No, it’s like Kansas.
[0:03:06 – 0:03:06] Adam: Kansas?
[0:03:06 – 0:03:07] Adam: It’s got to be Kansas, right?
[0:03:07 – 0:03:08] Adam: Probably Kansas.
[0:03:08 – 0:03:10] Erik: The days of sniffing the dirt are over.
[0:03:11 – 0:03:29] Erik: But to come back from a mission like that and then all of a sudden end up getting yelled at by a newfangled tornado technology agency all the while trying to maintain some semblance of a relationship with Helen Hunt.
[0:03:29 – 0:03:31] Erik: I mean, it’s incredible what that man did.
[0:03:32 – 0:03:32] Adam: At least he’s warm.
[0:03:33 – 0:03:36] Erik: Yeah, we’re hanging in there.
[0:03:36 – 0:03:37] Erik: We’re warm enough.
[0:03:38 – 0:03:41] Erik: We’re doing great.
[0:03:41 – 0:03:49] Erik: We’re doing great to provide the conclusion to this Edmund Fitzgerald trilogy under the current conditions.
[0:03:51 – 0:03:55] Erik: I’m sure many of those men would trade with us in a second.
[0:03:56 – 0:03:57] Erik: And I wouldn’t want to trade.
[0:03:57 – 0:04:06] Erik: So that is to say, we can bear with the current conditions, which are mild compared to plunging to the bottom of Lake Superior.
[0:04:08 – 0:04:09] Adam: With the lights still on.
[0:04:09 – 0:04:10] Erik: For reasons unknown.
[0:04:13 – 0:04:14] Adam: Will we know them?
[0:04:15 – 0:04:42] Adam: no probably not no i don’t think so no we got no uh like out of left field other high and alt no no you did send me many more screenshots of a variety of maritime historians documentaries that i’m just still in shock that i got us a couple certificates i bought a couple certificates online on the internet now you and i are both certified maritime historians oh nice when can i
[0:04:44 – 0:04:46] Adam: In like two to three weeks.
[0:04:47 – 0:04:47] Adam: Weeks?
[0:04:48 – 0:04:50] Adam: Yeah, they’re shipping ground by pony.
[0:04:51 – 0:04:51] Adam: Yeah.
[0:04:51 – 0:04:52] Adam: By steam, actually.
[0:04:52 – 0:04:55] Adam: They’re not on a big boat out in the ocean right now?
[0:04:55 – 0:04:56] Adam: They’re shipping by steam.
[0:04:58 – 0:05:00] Adam: So, you know, we have that to look forward to.
[0:05:00 – 0:05:03] Adam: Although we’re going to have to change all our names to just initials.
[0:05:03 – 0:05:03] Adam: Right.
[0:05:03 – 0:05:04] Adam: So pick a few good ones.
[0:05:05 – 0:05:08] Erik: Well, I mean, I don’t know if there’s anything necessarily wrong with E.P.
[0:05:08 – 0:05:09] Erik: Danielson.
[0:05:09 – 0:05:09] Adam: E.P.
[0:05:09 – 0:05:13] Adam: Danielson definitely sounds like a maritime historian.
[0:05:13 – 0:05:14] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:05:16 – 0:05:19] Adam: It sounds like a damn fine maritime historian.
[0:05:20 – 0:05:24] Adam: You probably give lectures at the Manitowoc Maritime Museum.
[0:05:25 – 0:05:26] Erik: For free on the sidewalk.
[0:05:29 – 0:05:31] Adam: Sir, please keep it down out here.
[0:05:32 – 0:05:34] Adam: Shaking foam noodle and ruler.
[0:05:36 – 0:05:37] Adam: He brought his own couch.
[0:05:37 – 0:05:40] Erik: He’s just out there with nautical maps.
[0:05:41 – 0:05:42] Erik: The angle’s all wrong.
[0:05:43 – 0:05:53] Erik: Some of them are blowing around down the sidewalks of some depressed northern rust belt town.
[0:05:53 – 0:05:54] Erik: Eastern Wisconsin.
[0:05:54 – 0:05:55] Erik: Manitowoc.
[0:05:55 – 0:06:02] Adam: I watched a couple different documentaries where the name Manitowoc had been mangled on some other shipwrecks.
[0:06:02 – 0:06:03] Erik: By inpronunciation?
[0:06:03 – 0:06:04] Adam: Yeah, Manitowoc.
[0:06:05 – 0:06:33] Erik: man on a walk I guess so well I just do love the fact that all of those documentaries come with the same visual presentation fonts all of them are just the same probably the same font like package that got sent to like TV newsrooms from the 80s it was just kind of the blanket slate of like you get eight fonts to work with graphic clips red and yellow are your options and a couple neat fades yes
[0:06:34 – 0:06:42] Erik: But taking cutouts of pictures and or paintings of boats and overlaying them onto waves and forcing them to sink.
[0:06:43 – 0:06:46] Erik: I mean, that takes another level of expertise in the field.
[0:06:46 – 0:06:54] Adam: I’ve seen like 15 to 16 probably different representations of like animated shoals.
[0:06:55 – 0:06:55] Erik: Yes.
[0:06:56 – 0:06:59] Erik: Animated shoals front runner for episode title.
[0:06:59 – 0:07:09] Adam: The, you know, we were joking last week about, you know, the best shoal names at the tumblies, but yeah, there’s best shoal animation could be all another category.
[0:07:10 – 0:07:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:10 – 0:07:11] Erik: Excellent.
[0:07:11 – 0:07:12] Adam: Shout out to those shoal animators.
[0:07:12 – 0:07:13] Adam: It’s probably just one guy.
[0:07:14 – 0:07:14] Adam: Probably.
[0:07:14 – 0:07:17] Adam: I mean, once you get that under your… A cold shed in space.
[0:07:19 – 0:07:20] Erik: Basically, yeah.
[0:07:20 – 0:07:23] Erik: To go back, it does feel like we are floating in space right now.
[0:07:24 – 0:07:30] Adam: Tonight’s Tumble Home Outdoor Calendar Fact of the Night for November 12th, 2022.
[0:07:31 – 0:07:33] Adam: It’s time to let your jack-o’-lantern be free.
[0:07:34 – 0:07:36] Adam: Send it down the nearest waterfall.
[0:07:36 – 0:07:38] Adam: Sunset is at 429 p.m.
[0:07:38 – 0:07:42] Adam: This is officially Tumble Home After Dark.
[0:07:44 – 0:08:11] Adam: and uh my name is frederick stonehouse jr joining me here is ep danielson maritime historian the third the third uh we’re talking about a tragedy so a lot of laughs tonight probably part three of the tragedy we will eventually i think break down the lyrics from the song that was written just two days after the news broke there was a song written about this
[0:08:12 – 0:08:15] Adam: Yeah, I’m checking my notes here.
[0:08:15 – 0:08:20] Adam: I think it’s some sort of jazz synthesis.
[0:08:20 – 0:08:22] Adam: Some free-form jazz.
[0:08:22 – 0:08:27] Adam: So I’m told we’re going to check it out, but I have the lyrics in my phone.
[0:08:27 – 0:08:31] Adam: We’re going to read through them, break them down, make sure they’re accurate.
[0:08:31 – 0:08:33] Erik: It’s about the notes that they don’t play.
[0:08:33 – 0:08:34] Adam: That’s right.
[0:08:37 – 0:08:40] Adam: They’re going fully loaded for Cleveland, though.
[0:08:41 – 0:08:42] Adam: What’s that?
[0:08:42 – 0:08:44] Adam: I thought we were going to Zug Island.
[0:08:44 – 0:08:46] Erik: Yeah, just outside of Detroit.
[0:08:46 – 0:08:47] Adam: Yeah, it’s not in Cleveland.
[0:08:48 – 0:08:52] Erik: Yeah, I think that song was written before… All the facts were out.
[0:08:52 – 0:08:53] Adam: All the facts were out.
[0:08:53 – 0:08:55] Adam: Bernie Cooper wouldn’t be in this jazz band, let me tell you.
[0:08:56 – 0:08:57] Adam: He’s all about the facts.
[0:08:58 – 0:09:02] Erik: Not the Bernie Cooper himself, but probably another Bernie Cooper.
[0:09:02 – 0:09:05] Erik: That sounds like a pretty classic jazz man name, doesn’t it?
[0:09:05 – 0:09:06] Adam: Bernie Cooper Quartet.
[0:09:07 – 0:09:08] Adam: It’s coming to town.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:08] Adam: Do you get tickets?
[0:09:09 – 0:09:10] Adam: Do you know anybody that’s got tickets?
[0:09:12 – 0:09:18] Erik: Dusty Dank Jazz Basement somewhere in Soho, and we got Bernie Cooper over here on the drums.
[0:09:18 – 0:09:19] Adam: We got the Bernie Cooper.
[0:09:19 – 0:09:22] Erik: We got the Bernie Cooper.
[0:09:23 – 0:09:24] Erik: We also have some sponsors, though.
[0:09:24 – 0:09:27] Erik: Some first time, long time.
[0:09:28 – 0:09:38] Adam: It is really cold in the shed, so I had to take evasive maneuvers today with the big cart and loaded up all the art supplies.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:42] Adam: Don’t worry, they’re still documented on the whiteboard, but this one was next up.
[0:09:42 – 0:09:43] Erik: You salvaged the other ones?
[0:09:43 – 0:09:47] Adam: I just put this one in the house to make sure it wasn’t too cold for the show.
[0:09:48 – 0:09:51] Adam: The rest of them all went to the heated crawl space.
[0:09:52 – 0:09:53] Adam: They’re ready.
[0:09:53 – 0:09:53] Adam: Don’t worry.
[0:09:54 – 0:09:54] Adam: It’s not hot.
[0:09:55 – 0:09:56] Adam: It’s just not frozen.
[0:09:56 – 0:10:02] Adam: It’s perfect temperature for long-term storage for our supplies just to keep them safe.
[0:10:02 – 0:10:04] Erik: Talking himself in circles over here.
[0:10:04 – 0:10:05] Erik: I don’t even know what to believe anymore.
[0:10:06 – 0:10:07] Erik: What’s the truth?
[0:10:07 – 0:10:08] Erik: Is it hot?
[0:10:08 – 0:10:09] Erik: What’s the truth, Frederick?
[0:10:10 – 0:10:16] Adam: These art supplies with a creative spelling, they have the ABV written on the bag.
[0:10:16 – 0:10:20] Adam: So it’s a stapled shut bag of beer.
[0:10:20 – 0:10:22] Adam: Does it say what the beers are?
[0:10:22 – 0:10:23] Adam: No, it doesn’t say, though.
[0:10:24 – 0:10:25] Adam: So this is the surprise.
[0:10:25 – 0:10:27] Adam: I have it labeled as number one.
[0:10:28 – 0:10:31] Adam: So I was in a way to catalog these mystery bags we were getting.
[0:10:32 – 0:10:34] Adam: This is number one on the mystery bags list.
[0:10:34 – 0:10:34] Erik: Who knows?
[0:10:34 – 0:10:35] Erik: How long have we had that?
[0:10:36 – 0:10:37] Adam: It’s up on the board.
[0:10:37 – 0:10:40] Adam: It looks like it came in in the summer.
[0:10:41 – 0:10:44] Erik: So probably, I see Winchell is written on there.
[0:10:44 – 0:10:44] Adam: Right.
[0:10:44 – 0:10:50] Adam: So this is Art Supplies, 7.2 ABV Road.
[0:10:50 – 0:10:50] Erik: 7.2.
[0:10:51 – 0:10:52] Adam: Savage, Minnesota.
[0:10:52 – 0:10:55] Adam: We’re probably doxing somebody hard now.
[0:10:55 – 0:11:01] Adam: These are windshield-bound Mark and Courtney, and were dropped off at the co-op.
[0:11:01 – 0:11:03] Erik: Mark and Courtney, thank you.
[0:11:03 – 0:11:10] Adam: They’re stapled shut in this bag, and Eric can confirm now visually that it’s still stapled here.
[0:11:10 – 0:11:12] Erik: Didn’t realize I was going to be called out like that.
[0:11:12 – 0:11:15] Adam: These hatch covers on this bag are…
[0:11:17 – 0:11:19] Erik: Perfectly fixed.
[0:11:19 – 0:11:32] Erik: If you had to guess a percentage based on the topic of tonight that these beers have anything to do with what we’re going to talk about in any way, shape, or form.
[0:11:32 – 0:11:33] Adam: We’ll probably find a way to connect the dots.
[0:11:33 – 0:11:37] Erik: I was going to say we probably will be able to, but how great would it be if it was just like,
[0:11:37 – 0:11:39] Adam: Yeah, and this is a mystery bag, so you never know.
[0:11:39 – 0:11:42] Erik: It was just immediately made sense.
[0:11:42 – 0:11:44] Adam: I was thinking the same thing, though.
[0:11:44 – 0:11:46] Adam: It’s something even better than Reckoners.
[0:11:46 – 0:11:46] Adam: Right.
[0:11:46 – 0:11:47] Adam: Or Reckonators.
[0:11:48 – 0:11:49] Erik: Well, we know they’re cans, so they can’t be…
[0:11:49 – 0:11:50] Adam: They’re big cans.
[0:11:50 – 0:11:53] Adam: It feels like it’s a four-pack of big cans is all you can really tell.
[0:11:53 – 0:11:58] Erik: Yeah, it can’t be the Great Lakes Brewing actual Edmund Fitzgerald, which…
[0:11:58 – 0:11:59] Adam: Unless they’re in a Tallboy, who knows?
[0:11:59 – 0:12:00] Adam: All right, we’re opening it up.
[0:12:01 – 0:12:01] Adam: You getting this?
[0:12:01 – 0:12:03] Erik: Oh, it’s all happening.
[0:12:04 – 0:12:07] Adam: It’s a pretty good amount of staples in this thing.
[0:12:10 – 0:12:10] Adam: All right.
[0:12:11 – 0:12:12] Erik: Oh, they’re green.
[0:12:12 – 0:12:16] Erik: That leads me to believe they’re heavy IPAs.
[0:12:16 – 0:12:17] Adam: We have a card.
[0:12:19 – 0:12:20] Adam: There’s a boat on the cover.
[0:12:20 – 0:12:21] Erik: It’s filled with cash.
[0:12:22 – 0:12:22] Erik: Good night.
[0:12:28 – 0:12:30] Erik: It’s all too personal to read.
[0:12:31 – 0:12:32] Adam: I can read it.
[0:12:32 – 0:12:33] Adam: I think we can read it.
[0:12:33 – 0:12:34] Adam: Turn it 90 degrees.
[0:12:34 – 0:12:35] Adam: Yeah, well, there’s a PS in here.
[0:12:36 – 0:12:36] Adam: You’ll see.
[0:12:36 – 0:12:37] Erik: Okay, all right.
[0:12:37 – 0:12:38] Adam: That makes sense.
[0:12:38 – 0:12:39] Adam: Eric and Adam.
[0:12:40 – 0:12:41] Adam: Did they spell my name right?
[0:12:41 – 0:12:42] Adam: They did.
[0:12:42 – 0:12:42] Adam: Nice.
[0:12:42 – 0:12:46] Adam: Thanks for putting together such a fun show and community.
[0:12:46 – 0:12:47] Adam: Look forward to each week’s show.
[0:12:48 – 0:12:52] Adam: Just went back and listened to the Winchell episode to prep for my trip.
[0:12:53 – 0:12:53] Adam: Mark.
[0:12:54 – 0:12:55] Erik: Hey, all right.
[0:12:55 – 0:12:58] Adam: Thank you, Amateur Camper.
[0:13:00 – 0:13:00] Erik: There is a boat.
[0:13:01 – 0:13:03] Erik: It’s not a big boat, is it?
[0:13:03 – 0:13:03] Adam: What do we got here?
[0:13:05 – 0:13:10] Adam: And Courtney, of course, from… Don’t give all the shrift.
[0:13:10 – 0:13:11] Adam: Full shrift.
[0:13:11 – 0:13:12] Adam: What do we got here, anyways?
[0:13:12 – 0:13:17] Adam: I would think this is pretty Art Deco, actually.
[0:13:17 – 0:13:18] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:13:18 – 0:13:24] Adam: Public Access IPA from S6 Brewing?
[0:13:24 – 0:13:25] Adam: Oh, gosh.
[0:13:26 – 0:13:26] Adam: Oh, gosh, Eric.
[0:13:26 – 0:13:26] Adam: Eric.
[0:13:28 – 0:13:29] Erik: I see a bike.
[0:13:29 – 0:13:30] Erik: I see trees.
[0:13:30 – 0:13:33] Erik: I see a big sun.
[0:13:34 – 0:13:35] Erik: Greens, blues.
[0:13:35 – 0:13:36] Erik: Where is that?
[0:13:36 – 0:13:37] Erik: Matt.
[0:13:37 – 0:13:39] Erik: Matt is so hot right now.
[0:13:39 – 0:13:39] Adam: I’m sending one over.
[0:13:39 – 0:13:41] Adam: We got to figure out what’s going on with these.
[0:13:42 – 0:13:44] Adam: This is where the magic is happening, folks.
[0:13:44 – 0:13:48] Adam: This is when you know that we’re not editing or fiddling with the audio on this show.
[0:13:49 – 0:13:52] Erik: A dollar from each four pack goes to MCEA.
[0:13:53 – 0:13:54] Erik: Scan for more info.
[0:13:55 – 0:13:56] Erik: Hmm.
[0:13:57 – 0:13:58] Adam: I think it’s just 56 Brewing.
[0:13:59 – 0:13:59] Erik: I hope that’s…
[0:14:00 – 0:14:00] Adam: It is.
[0:14:00 – 0:14:01] Adam: We can confirm it.
[0:14:01 – 0:14:04] Adam: It’s 56 Brewing out of the Twin Cities.
[0:14:04 – 0:14:06] Erik: Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.
[0:14:07 – 0:14:07] Erik: Wow.
[0:14:08 – 0:14:08] Erik: Nice.
[0:14:09 – 0:14:09] Erik: That’s cool.
[0:14:10 – 0:14:21] Erik: I can’t say whether or not that’s a good agency, but seems like on its face, they’re probably trying for good things.
[0:14:24 – 0:14:25] Erik: Cheers, my good man.
[0:14:25 – 0:14:25] Erik: Cheers.
[0:14:25 – 0:14:27] Adam: I’m pretty excited about this one.
[0:14:27 – 0:14:43] Erik: I think the men on board Apollo 13, if given the chance, would have cracked a beer on re-entry.
[0:14:47 – 0:14:48] Adam: Yeah, I would think so.
[0:14:49 – 0:14:50] Adam: Is this a trick question?
[0:14:50 – 0:14:52] Adam: Are they not allowed to drink beer on re-entry?
[0:14:53 – 0:14:56] Erik: No, there’s nothing about it that’s a truth.
[0:14:57 – 0:14:58] Adam: I think the physics of it probably wouldn’t work.
[0:14:58 – 0:15:01] Adam: There’s too many G-forces to drink out of a can, probably.
[0:15:01 – 0:15:04] Erik: Well, yeah, it probably would be like a little sippy cup.
[0:15:07 – 0:15:08] Adam: No, I wouldn’t want one.
[0:15:08 – 0:15:17] Adam: But if you can have a tall, ice-cold IPA from 56 Brewing, I would say, yeah, they should give them to them.
[0:15:17 – 0:15:18] Adam: Even Paxton.
[0:15:19 – 0:15:19] Adam: Even Paxton.
[0:15:19 – 0:15:21] Adam: Even Paxton can have one.
[0:15:21 – 0:15:22] Adam: Gary Sinise can have one.
[0:15:23 – 0:15:24] Erik: Gary Sinise.
[0:15:24 – 0:15:25] Erik: Who could forget?
[0:15:26 – 0:15:33] Erik: He’s the one that came up with the whole square hose in the round vacuum tube, didn’t he?
[0:15:33 – 0:15:35] Erik: Or was he not a part of that?
[0:15:35 – 0:15:36] Adam: What was the answer?
[0:15:36 – 0:15:36] Adam: Chewing gum?
[0:15:37 – 0:15:38] Adam: Yes.
[0:15:38 – 0:15:40] Adam: Get Tom Hanks to chew some gum now.
[0:15:41 – 0:15:45] Erik: Yeah, that is the appropriate answer, is we need Tom Hanks to chew gum.
[0:15:48 – 0:15:49] Erik: All right.
[0:15:50 – 0:15:56] Adam: What do you think had more computing power, the Apollo mission or the Edmund Fitzgerald?
[0:15:56 – 0:15:56] Erik: They’re probably on par.
[0:15:57 – 0:16:02] Adam: Equal amounts, like one calculator, a modern calculator worth of…
[0:16:02 – 0:16:04] Adam: They don’t even make calculators.
[0:16:04 – 0:16:05] Erik: When did they land on the moon?
[0:16:05 – 0:16:05] Erik: 64?
[0:16:06 – 0:16:09] Adam: Just like one bedside clock worth of computing power.
[0:16:10 – 0:16:14] Erik: Yeah, I mean, considering what they flew to the moon with, if you want to believe that they did.
[0:16:15 – 0:16:16] Adam: With an Atari 2600.
[0:16:16 – 0:16:25] Erik: Yeah, basically the same technology that’s in a T-85 math Calculus 2 high school calculator at this point.
[0:16:25 – 0:16:29] Adam: I don’t know, was there even a computer on the Inman Fitzgerald?
[0:16:29 – 0:16:31] Adam: Or was it just the radio?
[0:16:31 – 0:16:32] Adam: Does that count as a computer?
[0:16:32 – 0:16:33] Erik: There were some circuits.
[0:16:35 – 0:16:40] Adam: What are you giving this all-access, public-access IPA?
[0:16:40 – 0:16:41] Adam: This is a beaut.
[0:16:41 – 0:16:42] Adam: It is a beautiful can.
[0:16:42 – 0:16:43] Adam: This is a real beaut.
[0:16:43 – 0:16:45] Erik: I’ll give a 10 out of 10 for can artwork.
[0:16:45 – 0:16:45] Erik: Love it.
[0:16:45 – 0:16:46] Erik: Love the colors.
[0:16:46 – 0:16:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:16:47 – 0:16:49] Erik: Love the light metallic.
[0:16:50 – 0:16:54] Erik: Taste-wise, not a 10 out of 10, but close.
[0:16:55 – 0:16:56] Adam: Yeah, that’s right there.
[0:16:57 – 0:17:01] Adam: I don’t care for bikes personally, but I do like the boat.
[0:17:01 – 0:17:02] Erik: Don’t care for kayaks either.
[0:17:02 – 0:17:04] Erik: There’s a kayak in the river as well.
[0:17:04 – 0:17:05] Adam: You think so?
[0:17:05 – 0:17:06] Adam: I think it might just be a solo canoe.
[0:17:06 – 0:17:08] Erik: Solo canoe, but he’s using a kayak paddle.
[0:17:08 – 0:17:09] Adam: It might be a screamer.
[0:17:09 – 0:17:11] Erik: That’s big demerit points there.
[0:17:11 – 0:17:13] Adam: Anyways, I’ll give it a 10 out of 10 as well.
[0:17:13 – 0:17:14] Adam: Thank you, Mark and Courtney.
[0:17:15 – 0:17:19] Adam: This is a real fine surprise bag.
[0:17:21 – 0:17:23] Adam: Applause for all the staples.
[0:17:23 – 0:17:25] Adam: That bag was well secured.
[0:17:26 – 0:17:35] Erik: I feel like one of these days we should invest in a soundboard so we can get some light clapping.
[0:17:35 – 0:17:37] Adam: We can probably afford a soundboard.
[0:17:38 – 0:17:39] Adam: Maybe in the spring.
[0:17:40 – 0:17:40] Adam: Yeah, stay tuned.
[0:17:40 – 0:17:42] Adam: We’ll see how the membership drive goes.
[0:17:43 – 0:17:44] Erik: That’s what we’re doing all winter.
[0:17:44 – 0:17:51] Adam: Thanks to our friends on Patreon for your continued support of this Border Waters podcast.
[0:17:51 – 0:17:55] Erik: Everybody loves a six-month-long member drive.
[0:17:58 – 0:18:06] Erik: Constantly telling you how far away we are from our goal and how improbable it is we will reach it by the given hour.
[0:18:06 – 0:18:13] Adam: No, but if you give your generous support, then you get a link to the feed where there’s no membership drive happening.
[0:18:14 – 0:18:15] Adam: It’s just a regular show again.
[0:18:15 – 0:18:15] Adam: That’s not how it works.
[0:18:15 – 0:18:16] Adam: That’s how it should work.
[0:18:16 – 0:18:18] Erik: That’s how we will work it.
[0:18:18 – 0:18:18] Erik: Yeah, exactly.
[0:18:18 – 0:18:19] Erik: That’s the way to do it.
[0:18:20 – 0:18:23] Adam: Yeah, there’s feed A and feed B, and it’s a secret link.
[0:18:25 – 0:18:26] Erik: It’s 8.58.
[0:18:26 – 0:18:33] Erik: We’ve got two minutes to get 278 more listeners to subscribe.
[0:18:34 – 0:18:35] Erik: I think we can do this.
[0:18:38 – 0:18:39] Adam: He’s got the train whistle out.
[0:18:40 – 0:18:44] Adam: Whatever happened to that old wooden train whistle you used to have here in the studio, folks?
[0:18:45 – 0:18:45] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:18:45 – 0:18:47] Erik: Where is the express whistle?
[0:18:48 – 0:18:51] Erik: It’ll reveal itself whenever we need to produce another one of those.
[0:18:52 – 0:19:06] Erik: soaking in water still that’s why we weren’t getting the appropriate deep chunky train whistle noises that I really do want out of a big wooden whistle
[0:19:08 – 0:19:09] Adam: That’s the whole point of buying a hood and whistle.
[0:19:10 – 0:19:10] Adam: Yeah.
[0:19:10 – 0:19:13] Adam: It’s for the chonky toots.
[0:19:13 – 0:19:14] Erik: Chonky toots.
[0:19:14 – 0:19:15] Erik: Chonky toots.
[0:19:15 – 0:19:16] Erik: Yep.
[0:19:16 – 0:19:16] Erik: All right.
[0:19:17 – 0:19:18] Erik: That’s up there.
[0:19:18 – 0:19:19] Erik: Anyways.
[0:19:19 – 0:19:21] Erik: Episode title two, potentially.
[0:19:21 – 0:19:22] Erik: I’m not writing that one down.
[0:19:22 – 0:19:23] Erik: Chonky toots.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:23] Erik: I don’t have either.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:25] Adam: I don’t put that one down, I guess.
[0:19:25 – 0:19:26] Adam: I didn’t write the first one down.
[0:19:26 – 0:19:27] Adam: I already forgot it.
[0:19:27 – 0:19:28] Erik: I don’t remember it either.
[0:19:28 – 0:19:30] Erik: Tomoholmcast.gmail.com.
[0:19:30 – 0:19:37] Erik: If you remember the first episode title idea we mentioned on this show already…
[0:19:39 – 0:19:39] Erik: Easter egg.
[0:19:39 – 0:19:40] Erik: It’s back there somewhere.
[0:19:40 – 0:19:41] Erik: Send me a message.
[0:19:41 – 0:19:46] Erik: Let me know before tomorrow at like noon.
[0:19:46 – 0:19:49] Erik: What episode is this?
[0:19:49 – 0:19:50] Erik: 214?
[0:19:50 – 0:19:50] Erik: 214.
[0:19:51 – 0:19:51] Erik: 214?
[0:19:51 – 0:19:52] Erik: What is the significance?
[0:19:52 – 0:19:53] Erik: None.
[0:19:56 – 0:19:58] Adam: That’s how deep the chummy flats is.
[0:19:59 – 0:19:59] Erik: 214 feet?
[0:19:59 – 0:19:59] Erik: 214 fathoms.
[0:19:59 – 0:20:01] Erik: It’s a reverse shoal.
[0:20:06 – 0:20:31] Erik: uh yeah so we’re gonna we’re gonna finish up on uh a topic that we’ve pretty much already explained in so many ways doesn’t have a finite conclusion but we’re gonna keep talking about the ways that people have tried to figure out exactly what happened the investigations many investigations
[0:20:33 – 0:20:39] Adam: I did watch one of my favorite YouTube documentaries of the week was this called Fitzgerald Investigations.
[0:20:41 – 0:20:44] Erik: Is that the one that you sent me the screenshot of?
[0:20:45 – 0:20:45] Erik: Cousteau?
[0:20:46 – 0:20:47] Adam: Yeah, that one’s got Cousteau in it.
[0:20:48 – 0:20:51] Erik: That was a mind-blowing revelation when I was reading this book.
[0:20:52 – 0:20:57] Erik: Again, Schumacher, Michael, link in the show notes.
[0:20:58 – 0:21:26] Erik: source material i came out of left field but it wasn’t even him it was just his boat and his son that like yeah he wasn’t in the summer the submersible not even he was on the boat he was like he was there for like a hot minute and then he had to like fly back to madrid or something for like a seahorse conference porta potwa porta potwa who’s my summer at my villa your cat’s dead
[0:21:27 – 0:21:28] Adam: What kind of thing is that to say?
[0:21:29 – 0:21:30] Erik: Snake bit it in the neck.
[0:21:30 – 0:21:32] Adam: Why do you got to say it like that?
[0:21:32 – 0:21:39] Erik: All right.
[0:21:40 – 0:21:43] Erik: Well, on guffaws, let’s transition into… More tragedy talk.
[0:21:43 – 0:21:46] Erik: More tragedy talk.
[0:21:46 – 0:21:46] Erik: I mean…
[0:21:49 – 0:21:49] Erik: All right.
[0:21:50 – 0:21:51] Adam: All right, focus in.
[0:21:51 – 0:21:51] Erik: Focus.
[0:21:53 – 0:21:54] Erik: Yes, same source material.
[0:21:55 – 0:22:11] Erik: There are, obviously, again, you’re still listening to this three hour plus episodes in to the tragic loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald and our source material, as mentioned in the past, is The Mighty Fitz, The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Michael Schumacher.
[0:22:13 – 0:22:13] Erik: One…
[0:22:15 – 0:22:31] Erik: like two day old fingernails worth of content in the vast, both written and video format content on this subject.
[0:22:32 – 0:22:41] Erik: It’s shockingly deep, wide, and which is also like makes it even more frustrating because
[0:22:42 – 0:22:44] Adam: As wide as the Soo Locks.
[0:22:44 – 0:22:48] Adam: As wide as the Soo Locks and… You know only one of them is wide, right?
[0:22:51 – 0:22:52] Erik: I didn’t know anything about…
[0:22:52 – 0:22:54] Erik: I don’t actually know anything about the Soo Locks.
[0:22:54 – 0:22:55] Erik: I don’t even know what they look like.
[0:22:55 – 0:22:58] Adam: I got some Soo Lock facts for later.
[0:22:58 – 0:23:03] Erik: Well, once we’re off, Mike, you… Yeah, actually, maybe just right now, just airdrop me some pics of those.
[0:23:03 – 0:23:05] Adam: Yeah, well, the one’s really wide, though.
[0:23:05 – 0:23:06] Adam: Okay.
[0:23:06 – 0:23:07] Adam: For the big boats.
[0:23:07 – 0:23:09] Adam: Send me, yeah, only the widest.
[0:23:10 – 0:23:12] Adam: The Canadian’s got one too, but it’s tiny.
[0:23:12 – 0:23:15] Adam: Of course.
[0:23:15 – 0:23:17] Adam: These are all true lock facts.
[0:23:18 – 0:23:20] Adam: I’ll save the rest for later, though.
[0:23:20 – 0:23:21] Erik: That’s a lock fact.
[0:23:22 – 0:23:23] Adam: It’s a lock fact, Eric.
[0:23:24 – 0:23:26] Erik: Oh, that’s a lock fact.
[0:23:26 – 0:23:32] Erik: That is my going to the top of the board vote for episode title.
[0:23:33 – 0:23:35] Adam: I think that one beats up Chonky Toots for sure.
[0:23:36 – 0:23:37] Adam: We’re crossing that one off.
[0:23:37 – 0:23:38] Erik: That’s a lock fact.
[0:23:38 – 0:23:41] Erik: On May 20th, 1976.
[0:23:44 – 0:23:49] Erik: This is the Coast Guard search and rescue ship, the Woodrush.
[0:23:50 – 0:23:50] Adam: Oh, the Woodrush.
[0:23:50 – 0:23:50] Adam: 20 hours.
[0:23:54 – 0:24:02] Erik: Under motor from Duluth, like the closest mildly appropriate boat for this kind of a mission.
[0:24:02 – 0:24:03] Adam: 20 hours away.
[0:24:06 – 0:24:24] Erik: But at that point, it was, I mean, we all know if there would have been even the most capable helicopter team paired with the most capable Coast Guard rescue boat, pretty much an impossible situation.
[0:24:25 – 0:24:28] Adam: And again, what are they going to do even if they found them?
[0:24:28 – 0:24:44] Erik: I mean, I’ve told the story before about the time I had to rescue some people out of Clearwater just in a 16-foot V-Haul Lund trying to get up next to people without bashing them, the bobbing, the waves, the crashing, the cold, everything.
[0:24:44 – 0:24:45] Erik: Just the madness of that.
[0:24:45 – 0:24:46] Erik: Just two people.
[0:24:47 – 0:24:49] Adam: Skis from three directions.
[0:24:49 – 0:24:50] Erik: Yeah, and then you’re…
[0:24:51 – 0:24:56] Erik: A thousand feet larger than an old Lund from 89?
[0:24:56 – 0:24:58] Adam: Yeah, throw an old tire over the side on a rope.
[0:24:59 – 0:24:59] Adam: Yeah.
[0:24:59 – 0:25:00] Adam: Acts as a buffer.
[0:25:01 – 0:25:04] Erik: But we are finally getting to…
[0:25:06 – 0:25:19] Erik: I don’t know if it’s necessarily the most interesting in general, but it’s the most interesting to me is some of the underwater research that went in and how you just assume…
[0:25:20 – 0:25:22] Erik: Well, we just go take a look.
[0:25:23 – 0:25:26] Erik: It’s all going to become very apparent as to what happened.
[0:25:27 – 0:25:40] Erik: And not many underwater research pictures or videos lend anything more to the answers than actually just adding more questions.
[0:25:41 – 0:25:41] Erik: It’s kind of crazy.
[0:25:42 – 0:25:46] Adam: Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to tell what’s going on down there in the murky deeps.
[0:25:47 – 0:25:47] Adam: Yeah.
[0:25:47 – 0:25:51] Adam: It’s pretty good water, too, but that’s 500 plus feet deep.
[0:25:51 – 0:25:53] Adam: That’s just murky.
[0:25:53 – 0:25:57] Adam: It looks like you’re inside of an avalanches music video.
[0:25:57 – 0:26:02] Adam: I’ve been watching a lot of the underwater footage this week, trying to get a sense for what they were looking at.
[0:26:03 – 0:26:08] Adam: Anything I can find with underwater footage of the wreck.
[0:26:09 – 0:26:13] Adam: I think I’ve watched it, and it’s really hard to tell what you’re looking at.
[0:26:13 – 0:26:25] Adam: I assume most of the stuff, for reasons that we’re probably going to get into, I would assume a lot of that footage is probably under lock and key and won’t ever come out.
[0:26:26 – 0:26:27] Erik: Some of the footage?
[0:26:27 – 0:26:29] Erik: Yeah, there’s a little bit of that towards the end.
[0:26:31 – 0:26:39] Adam: I mean, it was pretty touchy on how to get the permission to go down there and film it.
[0:26:39 – 0:26:41] Erik: Yeah, no, and that’s exactly right away.
[0:26:41 – 0:26:42] Erik: For a good reason.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:44] Erik: Yeah, I would say…
[0:26:46 – 0:26:57] Erik: All jokes aside, I don’t think either of us are going to be here as proponents for desecrating a gravesite, which is, in the end of the day, I think what it is.
[0:26:58 – 0:27:08] Erik: Towards the end, some of those last missions that went down there, and they started finding actual human remains, that kind of changes the entire…
[0:27:09 – 0:27:17] Erik: concept of what you’re trying to accomplish, especially when you’re disseminating images and videos out into the world.
[0:27:18 – 0:27:24] Erik: And as a family member or a loved one of somebody that was on that boat, I couldn’t even imagine like…
[0:27:25 – 0:27:30] Erik: Especially because it was like almost 20 years after the whole thing.
[0:27:30 – 0:27:36] Erik: Then they started like finding, I mean, it kind of gets a little, it gets a little dirty.
[0:27:36 – 0:27:38] Erik: It gets a little weird towards the end.
[0:27:38 – 0:27:38] Adam: It’s a little gruesome.
[0:27:39 – 0:27:44] Erik: Kind of had to start actually putting in place like, okay, yeah, no, we need to stop going down here.
[0:27:46 – 0:27:47] Erik: It’s been 20 years.
[0:27:48 – 0:27:50] Erik: Everything that we can learn, we’ve learned.
[0:27:50 – 0:27:52] Adam: Yeah, you’re just stirring up the mud at this point.
[0:27:52 – 0:27:54] Erik: Yeah, in so many different ways.
[0:27:54 – 0:28:11] Erik: But right away, it seemed like a pretty smart thing to do, which would be get something down there and confirm these anomalies that this sideways magnet helicopter had provided us with and see what’s going on.
[0:28:13 – 0:28:17] Erik: And so, yeah, May 20th, 1976, they had to basically wait the winter out.
[0:28:18 – 0:28:25] Erik: And the Woodrush came with a controlled, a cable-controlled underwater research vessel.
[0:28:26 – 0:28:27] Erik: Or a curve.
[0:28:27 – 0:28:28] Erik: Curve three.
[0:28:28 – 0:28:43] Erik: The old curve three was eased into the waters of eastern Lake Superior, hoping to survey the wreckage of the once mighty Fitz and hopefully answer some of the many maddening questions that had been eluding investigators since its disappearance.
[0:28:45 – 0:28:55] Erik: Did not take long for them to find the inverted stern with its upside down Edmund Fitzgerald and Milwaukee letters upside down at the bottom of the lake.
[0:28:57 – 0:29:11] Erik: This curve in particular made 12 dives over eight days, spending 56 hours at the wreck site and producing 43,000 feet of video footage.
[0:29:12 – 0:29:13] Erik: Sealed in wax.
[0:29:14 – 0:29:15] Erik: Sealed in wax.
[0:29:16 – 0:29:20] Erik: Which doesn’t necessarily provide me with a great idea of how much that is.
[0:29:21 – 0:29:22] Erik: It’s like five minutes.
[0:29:22 – 0:29:24] Erik: I was going to say, what’s a foot of film?
[0:29:24 – 0:29:25] Adam: This isn’t HD.
[0:29:25 – 0:29:25] Adam: Film is always HD.
[0:29:27 – 0:29:28] Adam: 895 still photos.
[0:29:32 – 0:29:48] Erik: The curve measured the bow and stern sections of the ship at around 250 to 275 feet, which implied that a large portion of the middle of the ship had disintegrated or disappeared.
[0:29:48 – 0:29:52] Erik: I know what to note there.
[0:29:53 – 0:30:01] Erik: you know, these underwater submersibles go down there and it’s just going to paint this like entirely clear all at once picture.
[0:30:01 – 0:30:07] Erik: But like, it’s just one little like halogen light kind of poking into the pitch darkness.
[0:30:07 – 0:30:12] Adam: Oh, that’s a 80,000 candle power spotlight.
[0:30:13 – 0:30:15] Adam: But yeah, that’s still nothing against 530 feet of water.
[0:30:15 – 0:30:15] Adam: Yeah.
[0:30:16 – 0:30:16] Adam: Yeah.
[0:30:20 – 0:30:21] Adam: You’re not going to be able to see a whole lot.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:21] Erik: No.
[0:30:21 – 0:30:23] Adam: I’m more interested in them.
[0:30:23 – 0:30:27] Adam: They were able to like ping it with their like radars and such.
[0:30:27 – 0:30:35] Adam: I assume they’re drawing the picture or painting the picture that way and not just by trying to like hit it with candle power and then draw it.
[0:30:36 – 0:30:48] Adam: What do they take a bunch of pictures and then sort of like recreate the scene in a, you know, a 3D model at the Manitowoc Maritime Shipping Museum.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:52] Erik: Yeah, it’s probably, I mean, I don’t know.
[0:30:53 – 0:31:02] Adam: I’m picturing like an Atari 2600 with like a radar beam and then sort of like rendering it onto a screen.
[0:31:02 – 0:31:05] Adam: You know what I’m saying?
[0:31:05 – 0:31:08] Adam: And like green on a black monitor.
[0:31:08 – 0:31:10] Adam: Yeah, like War Games, Matthew Broderick.
[0:31:10 – 0:31:13] Adam: Exactly like War Games with Matthew Broderick, yeah.
[0:31:13 – 0:31:14] Adam: Yes.
[0:31:14 – 0:31:15] Adam: That’s what I was picturing.
[0:31:15 – 0:31:15] Erik: Yeah.
[0:31:16 – 0:31:16] Erik: No, I know.
[0:31:16 – 0:31:23] Erik: And there’s something so profound about the concept of just a shipwreck.
[0:31:23 – 0:31:27] Erik: Because one of those things…
[0:31:27 – 0:31:32] Erik: I’ve always been interested in the disaster aspects of things.
[0:31:32 – 0:31:37] Erik: And then there’s always that period of time when you’re doing the research into it.
[0:31:38 – 0:31:40] Erik: And then like, oh, there’s all the pictures.
[0:31:40 – 0:31:42] Erik: And here’s exactly what it looked like.
[0:31:43 – 0:32:00] Erik: the building and the way it collapsed or the plane and where they found the engine or whatever but like there’s enough of a mystery in all of that and then you can like see you know how it landed or whatever and it’s all there but like with a shipwreck I mean this is probably all obvious but it’s something about the like
[0:32:02 – 0:32:02] Erik: It’s there.
[0:32:03 – 0:32:03] Erik: It’s there right now.
[0:32:04 – 0:32:05] Erik: It’s still there.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:07] Erik: Edmund Fitzgerald is still at the bottom.
[0:32:08 – 0:32:09] Erik: They didn’t clean it up.
[0:32:09 – 0:32:10] Erik: It’s not like a plane crash.
[0:32:11 – 0:32:11] Erik: It’s not like anything.
[0:32:11 – 0:32:12] Erik: It’s just still there.
[0:32:13 – 0:32:14] Erik: And it’s still like kind of…
[0:32:14 – 0:32:15] Erik: Perfectly preserved.
[0:32:15 – 0:32:29] Erik: Generally like well-known, but also it’s only been taken pictures of or video of through like a variety of kind of… Just like trying to take like…
[0:32:30 – 0:32:42] Erik: 50 pictures of a house in the dark and then like recreating it and being like, well, I think it kind of looks like this, but then you see some of those like recreated, like dioramas, like at museums and stuff.
[0:32:42 – 0:32:54] Erik: And you’re like, well, that’s highly like, that’s what I typically want to like look at and just like consider when it comes to like trying to discern how, like what happened.
[0:32:54 – 0:32:56] Erik: But even that is like kind of like a light guess.
[0:32:56 – 0:32:56] Erik: Um,
[0:32:57 – 0:33:01] Erik: They’re not able to go down there and turn the lights on.
[0:33:02 – 0:33:02] Adam: Right.
[0:33:02 – 0:33:07] Adam: Yeah, it’s not like the thing where you get to drain the lake and then go see where everything is.
[0:33:07 – 0:33:08] Erik: Right, yeah.
[0:33:08 – 0:33:12] Adam: They’re just sort of, whatever their technology was, that’s the picture they have of it.
[0:33:12 – 0:33:14] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:33:14 – 0:33:14] Adam: Hmm.
[0:33:15 – 0:33:28] Erik: But I think there’s just like, I remember even from like a young age, like first, second grade, like the Titanic was just like a hundred, like a little under a hundred years ago.
[0:33:28 – 0:33:31] Erik: And it was just like the most interesting thing to me.
[0:33:31 – 0:33:32] Erik: I don’t know what it was.
[0:33:32 – 0:33:37] Erik: Like I remember watching all those documentaries back in the day where whatever his name was, Ballard.
[0:33:38 – 0:33:44] Erik: Took that first submarine down there, which I believe, now that I’ve done a little bit more research, he was actually on like an army mission.
[0:33:45 – 0:33:49] Erik: And they used the Titanic as an excuse to be where they were.
[0:33:50 – 0:33:50] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:33:50 – 0:33:51] Adam: They were trying to find that submarine.
[0:33:52 – 0:33:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:33:52 – 0:33:52] Erik: Yeah.
[0:33:52 – 0:33:54] Erik: They weren’t even looking for the Titanic.
[0:33:54 – 0:34:08] Erik: But some of those first images of coming out of the ghostly waters and just seeing where Leonardo DiCaprio spent that magical afternoon with Kate Winslet.
[0:34:08 – 0:34:10] Erik: I mean, it’s still down there.
[0:34:11 – 0:34:12] Erik: Leo’s down there.
[0:34:13 – 0:34:20] Adam: Yeah, I don’t like deep water, and the submersible images of sunken ships is deeply unsettling.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:26] Erik: Well, the best place to enjoy those images are from the comfort of your own chair next to a fire through the computer screen.
[0:34:26 – 0:34:28] Adam: That’s what I was doing, and even then, you know.
[0:34:28 – 0:34:32] Erik: No, I know, but even being on the boat would just be like, it’s down there.
[0:34:33 – 0:34:34] Adam: Right underneath us.
[0:34:34 – 0:34:35] Adam: I don’t like that at all.
[0:34:35 – 0:34:37] Adam: I don’t even like seeing seaweed underneath a canoe.
[0:34:37 – 0:34:37] Erik: No.
[0:34:38 – 0:34:38] Erik: Yeah.
[0:34:38 – 0:34:40] Erik: It takes a weird special brain to be like.
[0:34:40 – 0:34:42] Erik: This is good.
[0:34:42 – 0:34:43] Erik: I’m getting into diving.
[0:34:45 – 0:34:45] Adam: Yeah.
[0:34:45 – 0:34:47] Adam: The Recreational Divers Association.
[0:34:48 – 0:34:48] Adam: Yeah.
[0:34:48 – 0:34:49] Adam: Watch out for those freaks.
[0:34:50 – 0:34:56] Erik: There’s some people that set light records in the 90s diving to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
[0:34:56 – 0:34:57] Adam: Yeah.
[0:34:57 – 0:34:58] Adam: Nobody’s got interviews with them, though.
[0:34:59 – 0:34:59] Erik: No.
[0:34:59 – 0:35:01] Adam: Free divers.
[0:35:01 – 0:35:05] Erik: I think they just took some quick selfies and then took three hours to resurface.
[0:35:05 – 0:35:06] Erik: They got the bends.
[0:35:06 – 0:35:09] Erik: Because that’s how long it takes to come back up from 500 feet.
[0:35:11 – 0:35:17] Adam: I was just watching the ship tracker tonight, and there was a boat going right over the spot.
[0:35:18 – 0:35:24] Adam: I don’t know how many people know if you’re looking at a map of Lake Superior.
[0:35:24 – 0:35:30] Adam: I think now, after the last three episodes, I could point right to the spot where it is.
[0:35:30 – 0:35:31] Adam: I could, too.
[0:35:31 – 0:35:35] Erik: I’ve always placed it in my mind way closer to, like, Sault Ste.
[0:35:35 – 0:35:40] Erik: Marie and, like, the tippity-bottom of Superior.
[0:35:40 – 0:35:41] Erik: It’s still way out there.
[0:35:41 – 0:35:42] Adam: Oh, it’s out there.
[0:35:43 – 0:35:43] Adam: Well, yeah.
[0:35:44 – 0:35:44] Adam: Yeah.
[0:35:46 – 0:35:57] Adam: One thing that I learned this week was that most of the stuff they found from it, I guess I originally thought they found it floating around or whatever.
[0:35:57 – 0:36:00] Adam: I’m like, oh, they found this floating half a lifeboat or whatever.
[0:36:00 – 0:36:03] Adam: But most of that stuff they found apparently on a Canadian beach.
[0:36:04 – 0:36:04] Erik: Oh, really?
[0:36:04 – 0:36:05] Adam: Yeah.
[0:36:05 – 0:36:10] Adam: Apparently, and that explains why it was all ripped to shreds.
[0:36:10 – 0:36:11] Erik: Interesting.
[0:36:11 – 0:36:11] Erik: Yeah.
[0:36:11 – 0:36:14] Adam: So there’s a lot of like things about this case.
[0:36:15 – 0:36:16] Adam: It’s very intriguing.
[0:36:16 – 0:36:20] Adam: And the more you like read about it, then you’re like, oh, that’s a little detail I didn’t know.
[0:36:21 – 0:36:21] Erik: Yeah.
[0:36:21 – 0:36:33] Erik: There’s parts of it that are almost like the more you learn about it, the harder it is to try and put your finger on exactly what happened.
[0:36:34 – 0:36:38] Adam: Yeah, but I watched that boat on the tracker going right over the spot.
[0:36:39 – 0:36:39] Erik: Today?
[0:36:40 – 0:36:46] Adam: Yeah, but even on the 10th, it was a real galley buster of a storm.
[0:36:47 – 0:36:50] Adam: And even then, there was boats still out there.
[0:36:50 – 0:36:53] Adam: It was almost blowing a gagger, though, Eric.
[0:36:53 – 0:36:54] Erik: A light gagger.
[0:36:54 – 0:36:58] Adam: And you’re watching these ships on the tracker on the 10th,
[0:36:59 – 0:37:01] Adam: I’m like, they all got to be thinking about this, right?
[0:37:01 – 0:37:04] Adam: I don’t know what it’s like to be on a big boat in November out there.
[0:37:05 – 0:37:10] Adam: But they’re still just out there running on the same routes, trying to avoid the same kinds of winds.
[0:37:10 – 0:37:23] Adam: The storm we had on the 10th was kind of like, if you looked at the wind, I have this one wind app that really shows the directions and intensity of the wind very nicely, visually very appealing.
[0:37:24 – 0:37:28] Adam: It was like, this to me looks exactly like what they were kind of dealing with
[0:37:29 – 0:37:36] Adam: probably not on the orders of magnitude we’re talking about in 75, but kind of the same patterns.
[0:37:36 – 0:37:36] Adam: Yeah.
[0:37:37 – 0:37:42] Adam: And there was almost like weird, sometimes you see these like low pressure systems with all the wind swirling around it.
[0:37:43 – 0:37:46] Adam: It was like centered on the spot on the 10th.
[0:37:46 – 0:37:47] Adam: You know, I’m looking at this and it was like,
[0:37:49 – 0:37:51] Adam: It was eerie, you know?
[0:37:51 – 0:37:51] Erik: Yeah.
[0:37:51 – 0:37:52] Erik: Yeah, no, it is.
[0:37:52 – 0:37:53] Erik: And I have no idea.
[0:37:54 – 0:38:03] Erik: I imagine it runs the gamut like most things where some people are aware of it, some people aren’t, some people are aware of it and don’t care, you know, whatever.
[0:38:03 – 0:38:05] Adam: It’s just eerie how like year after year…
[0:38:05 – 0:38:08] Adam: in the beginning of November, you get these same kinds of systems.
[0:38:09 – 0:38:20] Adam: Like a lot of this has been very interesting about the ship itself, the story of the people that are involved, but like the weather systems themselves that created this whole thing, also a very interesting idea.
[0:38:20 – 0:38:23] Adam: And that’s still with us today, the same kinds of systems.
[0:38:23 – 0:38:39] Erik: Yeah, you’re just sitting in an empty room at home with those like invisible like laminate outlines of the low pressure front from 75 and then like last week’s and you’re just like overlaying them and then like looking over to nobody.
[0:38:41 – 0:38:41] Erik: You’re seeing this?
[0:38:42 – 0:38:42] Erik: You’re seeing this?
[0:38:42 – 0:38:43] Erik: It all lines up.
[0:38:44 – 0:38:54] Adam: arrow doesn’t care no the baby doesn’t care not yet not yet we’re gonna learn about isobars next week oh yeah next week is all about the isobars
[0:38:56 – 0:38:58] Erik: This is an eight part series.
[0:38:58 – 0:39:02] Erik: So yeah, they find the ship that they had all but assumed was there.
[0:39:03 – 0:39:07] Erik: They found the pilot house was crumpled and its windows were smashed out.
[0:39:07 – 0:39:11] Erik: But to everybody’s relief at the time, no bodies were seen.
[0:39:12 – 0:39:22] Erik: The discovery of the ship had finally concluded what everybody had believed, but still failed to answer any of the questions as to why it was down there.
[0:39:25 – 0:39:35] Erik: Going back to the board, the Coast Guard board who had originally made their statement before going down.
[0:39:36 – 0:39:41] Erik: But they have dramatically shifted their focus of attention when the curve three photographs came in.
[0:39:42 – 0:39:46] Erik: The fits, they decided, could not have broken apart on the surface.
[0:39:47 – 0:39:52] Erik: The bow section is upright, but it absolutely plowed into the ground.
[0:39:53 – 0:39:53] Erik: C.S.
[0:39:54 – 0:39:59] Erik: Loosemore noted, years later, How do you get that?
[0:40:00 – 0:40:05] Erik: Neither one of those pieces has transverse stability if it’s floating around by itself.
[0:40:06 – 0:40:11] Erik: If the bow had broken off and capsized, it would have capsized just as the stern did.
[0:40:12 – 0:40:21] Erik: The likelihood of the bows capsizing, coming down exactly upright, and plowing 30 feet into the ground is zero.
[0:40:22 – 0:40:22] Erik: Zero.
[0:40:23 – 0:40:25] Erik: They had to be going full bore when they hit the ground.
[0:40:26 – 0:40:32] Erik: And the only way that can happen is if this 700-foot ship in 500 feet of water is hurling down.
[0:40:34 – 0:40:45] Erik: The condition of the wreckage, Loosemore added, also gave the board reason to consider causes other than structural failure for the sinking of the ship.
[0:40:46 – 0:40:55] Erik: You don’t see the sharp, brittle failure that you’d expect to see if the hull broke on top, he said of the Fitzgerald’s wreckage.
[0:40:55 – 0:41:02] Erik: This is a ductile failure, and you wouldn’t have had that from a hull bending problem on the surface.
[0:41:02 – 0:41:10] Erik: More importantly, we had all this wreckage in between, just torn to smithereens and almost all ductile.
[0:41:11 – 0:41:19] Erik: The report, issued on July 26, 1977, was hotly disputed as it was published.
[0:41:19 – 0:41:37] Erik: At 120 pages, it was by far the longest and most detailed Marine casualty report in Coast Guard history, and the board admitted from the onset that it was impossible to provide approximate or final, indisputable cause for the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
[0:41:38 – 0:41:48] Erik: The best it could do was present the evidence and, through a process of elimination, arrive at the most probable cause of the ship’s sinking.
[0:41:49 – 0:41:57] Erik: In its remarks, the Marine Board described some of the difficulties it had encountered in assembling its findings in a timely fashion.
[0:41:58 – 0:42:08] Erik: This casualty presented the board unique investigative challenges which delayed the submission of the report.
[0:42:08 – 0:42:18] Erik: Since there were no survivors or witnesses to be questioned, the board went to considerable lengths to examine the wreckage located soon after the casualty.
[0:42:21 – 0:42:21] Erik: So…
[0:42:26 – 0:42:37] Erik: Interesting that they would, you know, as you move along, you try and ask yourself or put yourself in the shoes of some of these people.
[0:42:37 – 0:42:41] Erik: And I guess at the time, there’s not really much of a precedent to go off of.
[0:42:42 – 0:42:48] Erik: There are some previous boats that had sunk in an era that these boards existed.
[0:42:49 – 0:42:53] Erik: But it always kind of makes me wonder why they…
[0:42:55 – 0:42:58] Erik: Felt so inclined to come out with a report so early before.
[0:42:58 – 0:43:03] Erik: Not that going down with the curve made a bunch of difference.
[0:43:03 – 0:43:05] Erik: But at least it could have.
[0:43:06 – 0:43:09] Erik: It only added to like the confusion and…
[0:43:11 – 0:43:36] Adam: differences of opinions on what happened that a report was put out as early as it was just to go down that next spring and be like on second thought right now we got some more evidence here yeah i guess yeah i don’t know it’s not great with that like we’re gonna go with whatever you said first but that’s the way it is though you know it is imagine if something like this happened today
[0:43:37 – 0:43:41] Erik: Wait, wait, six months, then we’ll give you some better information.
[0:43:41 – 0:43:43] Adam: Yeah, an update based on better information.
[0:43:43 – 0:43:44] Adam: Right.
[0:43:44 – 0:43:47] Adam: Yeah, it wouldn’t be, you know, it would be mayhem.
[0:43:47 – 0:43:53] Erik: But it is, in the grand, well, I mean, really, yeah, probably, it may be.
[0:43:54 – 0:44:06] Erik: But in the grand scheme of things, like, just take all of the experiences that any kind of an investigation like this has, or just in any case of, like, humans investigating something, like…
[0:44:08 – 0:44:08] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:44:08 – 0:44:16] Erik: Like there aren’t very many opportunities where people are just like, okay, maybe we should just give them some time.
[0:44:16 – 0:44:17] Erik: I know I want to find out.
[0:44:17 – 0:44:26] Erik: I couldn’t imagine being in a situation as somebody who was associated with this and being cool with the fact that they’re going to just like wait until spring.
[0:44:26 – 0:44:27] Erik: The guy would want to know right away.
[0:44:27 – 0:44:29] Erik: I would want to know as soon as possible.
[0:44:29 – 0:44:36] Erik: I’m not discrediting anybody for wanting to know as soon as possible, but it does create so many more.
[0:44:36 – 0:44:36] Erik: Yeah.
[0:44:36 – 0:44:40] Adam: The vacuum of solid information just leads to speculation.
[0:44:40 – 0:44:41] Erik: Yeah.
[0:44:41 – 0:44:43] Adam: I’m sure there was, you know, we don’t,
[0:44:43 – 0:44:53] Adam: I don’t know how much they go into this in the book, but I’m sure there was like rumors and speculation all over the place right after the tragedy happened.
[0:44:53 – 0:44:53] Adam: Yeah.
[0:44:54 – 0:44:59] Erik: I’m sure there’s all sorts of theories right away as to what happened.
[0:44:59 – 0:45:03] Adam: And those just got like shaped over time and they’re still being shaped.
[0:45:03 – 0:45:03] Adam: Yeah.
[0:45:04 – 0:45:06] Erik: Yeah, no, I think that they definitely are.
[0:45:06 – 0:45:22] Erik: It’s just one of those weird things that you never really think you’re going to ever really have a real thought process on when getting into something like this that on its surface you’re just like kind of interested in because, you know.
[0:45:22 – 0:45:23] Erik: It’s close to home.
[0:45:24 – 0:45:26] Erik: You’ve heard the Gordon Lightfoot song.
[0:45:27 – 0:45:29] Erik: You’ve seen a couple of fun YouTube videos.
[0:45:29 – 0:45:42] Erik: But then when you start really like thinking about it and it’s just – I mean it’s probably a blueprint for most situations like this where if definitive and firm answers are not provided –
[0:45:43 – 0:45:48] Erik: Soon enough, like all that ends up happening is what we ended up seeing here.
[0:45:49 – 0:45:56] Erik: And it is just a, it’s a large handful of possibilities, which is.
[0:45:58 – 0:46:14] Erik: I mean, I guess on one hand, the other, in the hand that is full of possibilities, in the other hand, I guess it’s nice to know that at least most people who care about it can come to terms with the fact that, yeah, we don’t know what happened.
[0:46:15 – 0:46:17] Adam: Yeah, we’ll never know, you know, and that’s okay.
[0:46:17 – 0:46:19] Adam: Yeah.
[0:46:19 – 0:46:20] Adam: Don’t want to be a high nalt about it.
[0:46:21 – 0:46:25] Erik: No, I know, but it does go against everything that we want.
[0:46:25 – 0:46:27] Adam: But yeah, I still want to know.
[0:46:27 – 0:46:28] Erik: Yeah, exactly.
[0:46:28 – 0:46:30] Adam: I’ve got a little Heinle in me.
[0:46:30 – 0:46:34] Adam: I’ve got to know, and I kind of want a model of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
[0:46:35 – 0:46:35] Erik: Yeah.
[0:46:35 – 0:46:40] Erik: No, I think there’s, I mean, on my deathbed, it probably wouldn’t come up.
[0:46:40 – 0:46:49] Erik: But if I have a long deathbed, you know, like maybe a week or two, I’m like, eh, would have been nice to have had this happen or have done that or whatever.
[0:46:49 – 0:46:55] Erik: Like I couldn’t, I could see myself still at the end of the day, like being like, man, it would have been nice to know, like for sure.
[0:46:56 – 0:46:59] Erik: What happened in like a handful of things?
[0:46:59 – 0:47:02] Erik: Fitzgerald, that Malaysian flight.
[0:47:02 – 0:47:04] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:04 – 0:47:05] Erik: I know what happened to JFK.
[0:47:05 – 0:47:06] Erik: I’m not worried about that.
[0:47:06 – 0:47:09] Adam: What’s going on at McMurdo, you know?
[0:47:09 – 0:47:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:10 – 0:47:16] Erik: There’s just a few things where you just, but it is comforting to know that nobody else knows.
[0:47:18 – 0:47:18] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:19 – 0:47:28] Erik: I guess if there’s one thing I could take away from being somebody on that boat is they know.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:32] Erik: You know, they get to be the only ones that know.
[0:47:33 – 0:47:33] Adam: Did they, though?
[0:47:33 – 0:47:36] Adam: I mean, probably half of them had no idea what was happening.
[0:47:37 – 0:47:37] Erik: All right, fine.
[0:47:37 – 0:47:45] Erik: I wouldn’t say all of them, but you’d have to think at least there is for sure a couple of people on that boat who, if…
[0:47:46 – 0:47:49] Adam: Knew what the main problem was that led to the big problem.
[0:47:50 – 0:47:56] Erik: Yeah, if you could take them away from the whole situation, or if they would have made it to where they were supposed to, it would have been like, oh, damn, look at that.
[0:47:57 – 0:47:58] Adam: You guys barely made it.
[0:47:58 – 0:47:59] Adam: Got a thing there.
[0:47:59 – 0:48:07] Erik: Yeah, or even if they did end up going down, and for that last moment, they were like, oh, yeah, I definitely totally ran aground, you know?
[0:48:08 – 0:48:14] Adam: Say something, you know, but it’s probably, yeah, I don’t know.
[0:48:14 – 0:48:16] Adam: How do you say that, you know?
[0:48:16 – 0:48:17] Erik: No, I don’t know.
[0:48:17 – 0:48:20] Erik: It’s not, it’s, yeah, we’re…
[0:48:22 – 0:48:39] Erik: It’s all a weird labyrinth of speculation that gets, like I said, it’s like a reverse tumble tourney where it just continues to branch out into more and more confusion and the lines get less straight.
[0:48:39 – 0:48:47] Adam: The thing that I feel like I’ve understood better about it now through this whole process is like just how like
[0:48:48 – 0:48:54] Adam: I guess I just never understood that it hit the bottom while the propeller was still on the surface.
[0:48:54 – 0:48:56] Erik: It’s not a thing that you can even…
[0:48:57 – 0:49:07] Adam: And I’ve seen like visualizations and modeling of that and none of them do that justice to the way like this book Schumachered it, nailed it.
[0:49:08 – 0:49:08] Adam: Yeah.
[0:49:09 – 0:49:20] Adam: And it’s a horrible thing to like kind of picture like how hard this thing hit the bottom and then plowed and just like self imploded.
[0:49:20 – 0:49:27] Erik: Yeah, no, it’s not a thing that you, I mean, you can picture in a variety of ways a boat sinking.
[0:49:28 – 0:49:35] Erik: Not one of the ways that comes to mind is the way that it seems like this boat went down.
[0:49:35 – 0:49:38] Adam: You see this, like these boats are massive.
[0:49:38 – 0:49:39] Adam: Yeah.
[0:49:39 – 0:49:41] Adam: And this lake is immense.
[0:49:42 – 0:49:46] Adam: And it doesn’t seem like that one of them should be able to touch the bottom.
[0:49:46 – 0:49:51] Adam: even though you know it’s very deep, but, like, it can’t be 1,000 feet the whole way, right?
[0:49:51 – 0:49:52] Adam: But, like, none of those…
[0:49:52 – 0:50:04] Adam: Even though those boats seem to be that big, like, it doesn’t make any sense to me that, like, one of them could just nosedive and hit the bottom before, you know, while their propeller is still on the surface.
[0:50:04 – 0:50:06] Adam: It just doesn’t make any sense.
[0:50:06 – 0:50:08] Adam: And it appears that they just, like…
[0:50:09 – 0:50:24] Adam: fucking wall up the bottom yeah at 18 to 20 miles an hour or whatever it was which doesn’t seem crazy but when that much like steel is involved you know even a 20 mile an hour car wreck well yeah even yeah 20 mile an hour car it
[0:50:25 – 0:50:42] Adam: smashing into a wall pontiac vibe running off of a bridge i mean that’s not good no you see something this big with that much force behind it i’m not like great at comprehending the physics of that but like it seems kind of nuts and i just can’t get that image out of my head
[0:50:43 – 0:50:44] Erik: No, yeah, no.
[0:50:44 – 0:50:44] Erik: And it’s spooky.
[0:50:45 – 0:50:55] Erik: And again, the way that Schumacher depicted that in his best words into what he thinks happened and with a little bit of insight from the research that he did.
[0:50:56 – 0:51:02] Erik: Yeah, it’s one of the spookier things you can conjure in your mind is a boat going down in that way.
[0:51:02 – 0:51:03] Erik: It’s not slow.
[0:51:03 – 0:51:05] Erik: It’s not kind of taking on water.
[0:51:05 – 0:51:18] Erik: It may or may not have had water on board, but the way in which it may have struck bottom and then directed itself towards the bottom of the lake and then against its…
[0:51:20 – 0:51:27] Erik: own best interests, the propeller just driving it right into the bottom of the lake is just crazy to comprehend.
[0:51:27 – 0:51:28] Adam: It’s anti-boat.
[0:51:28 – 0:51:29] Erik: Anti-boat.
[0:51:29 – 0:51:30] Erik: Very anti-boat.
[0:51:30 – 0:51:31] Adam: Anti-boat behavior by a boat.
[0:51:32 – 0:51:32] Erik: Yeah.
[0:51:32 – 0:51:33] Adam: And I don’t like it.
[0:51:34 – 0:51:35] Erik: No, it’s spooky.
[0:51:35 – 0:51:36] Erik: It’s unsettling.
[0:51:36 – 0:51:47] Erik: And I can’t even think of a commensurate way a plane could crash that would be as jarring as thinking about a boat running itself into the bottom of a lake at that depth.
[0:51:47 – 0:51:54] Adam: You see some of these images of the pilot house at the front, at the bottom, just sitting there.
[0:51:55 – 0:51:56] Adam: And it’s all messed up.
[0:51:56 – 0:51:57] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:57 – 0:51:59] Adam: It’s just messed up.
[0:51:59 – 0:52:01] Adam: That thing must have smacked the bottom.
[0:52:02 – 0:52:02] Erik: Yeah.
[0:52:02 – 0:52:03] Adam: That’s crazy.
[0:52:03 – 0:52:07] Adam: And then Schumacher had to go and say the lights were still on.
[0:52:07 – 0:52:09] Adam: That makes it double bad.
[0:52:09 – 0:52:10] Adam: I don’t like it.
[0:52:10 – 0:52:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:52:11 – 0:52:25] Erik: So the report also pointed out that since the ship had been built in 1958, load line restrictions had been loosened, allowing ships of its kind to take in more cargo at the cost of decreasing freeboard.
[0:52:25 – 0:52:38] Erik: And the board pointed that this was a main cause and it increased the amount of water the ship took on through these hatches and openings through topside damage.
[0:52:40 – 0:52:47] Erik: The topside damage to the fence rail and how it was caused described in the report was one of the more hotly contested points.
[0:52:48 – 0:53:02] Erik: The report claimed that the damage had been caused by, quote, the vessel striking a heavy floating object, which was then brought aboard in the heavy seas.
[0:53:03 – 0:53:06] Erik: Never claiming specifically what the object could have been.
[0:53:07 – 0:53:08] Erik: What?
[0:53:08 – 0:53:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:53:09 – 0:53:10] Adam: Vessel.
[0:53:10 – 0:53:16] Erik: Yeah, this report that came out from the Coast Guard…
[0:53:17 – 0:53:41] Erik: floating object yeah their their explanation as to the fence rail breaking was something never said no there’s something floating on the water that like came up on a wave broke the fence rail maybe jarred loose like a log yeah remember that time uh in clear water the sunk log no i don’t want to talk about that well you know about it i do there’s these big old logs out there yeah
[0:53:43 – 0:53:46] Adam: Yeah, I hadn’t really considered something like that.
[0:53:46 – 0:53:47] Adam: Just like debris.
[0:53:48 – 0:53:49] Adam: Just some debris.
[0:53:49 – 0:53:50] Adam: A bead butt.
[0:53:51 – 0:53:51] Adam: Big.
[0:53:52 – 0:53:52] Adam: Big debris.
[0:53:53 – 0:53:53] Erik: Depending on…
[0:53:53 – 0:53:55] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:53:55 – 0:53:59] Erik: What side of the boat was the fence rail damaged?
[0:53:59 – 0:54:00] Erik: Starboard.
[0:54:01 – 0:54:03] Erik: What side were the waves coming from?
[0:54:04 – 0:54:04] Adam: Starboard.
[0:54:05 – 0:54:06] Adam: Okay, so…
[0:54:06 – 0:54:07] Adam: Okay.
[0:54:07 – 0:54:07] Erik: Yeah.
[0:54:08 – 0:54:17] Erik: While hogging and or grounding of the ship were possible, the report ruled them out as causes for the damage, specifically to the fence rail.
[0:54:18 – 0:54:18] Adam: Okay.
[0:54:19 – 0:54:23] Erik: And on the matter of faulty hatch covers, we’ve got the report.
[0:54:24 – 0:54:25] Erik: It is concluded…
[0:54:26 – 0:54:47] Erik: that the system of cargo hatch combings, gaskets, covers, and clamps which was installed on Fitzgerald and the manner in which the system was maintained did not provide an effective means of preventing penetration of water into the ship in any condition as required by Coast Guard regulations.
[0:54:47 – 0:55:01] Erik: In the opinion of the Marine Board, if the clamps had been properly fastened, any damage, disruption or dislocation of the hatch covers would have resulted in damage to or distortion of the clamps.
[0:55:02 – 0:55:20] Erik: It is concluded that these damaged clamps were the only ones of those seen which were properly fastened to the covers and that there were too few of these and too many unfastened or loosely fastened clamps to provide any effective closure of the hatches.
[0:55:23 – 0:55:27] Erik: Other questions arose from the board’s hatch closure theory.
[0:55:28 – 0:55:46] Erik: biggest one perhaps focused on the volume of water that could leak through the hatches if the covers were fastened down but not watertight could enough seep through enough to sink a ship in the time the fits was on the lake if so wouldn’t someone have noticed it
[0:55:47 – 0:55:48] Erik: Test the theory.
[0:55:48 – 0:55:49] Erik: C.S.
[0:55:49 – 0:55:49] Erik: Loosemore.
[0:55:50 – 0:55:51] Erik: C.S.
[0:55:51 – 0:55:52] Adam: Loosemore.
[0:55:52 – 0:55:53] Erik: Constructed a model.
[0:55:53 – 0:55:57] Adam: Out of foam on his old grandma’s couch.
[0:55:57 – 0:55:59] Erik: It was actually a model of a hatch combing.
[0:56:00 – 0:56:06] Erik: He then measured the flow of water through the slightest quarter inch gap between the cover and combing.
[0:56:07 – 0:56:11] Erik: When water covered the hatch, the results were telling and surprising.
[0:56:12 – 0:56:22] Erik: It was a matter of some calculations to determine what the flow rate was, and once I knew the flow rate and the period of time, I could figure how much water came in.
[0:56:23 – 0:56:31] Erik: I calculated that if only something like one-third of the total number of openings was actually letting water in, the Fitzgerald would have lost…
[0:56:32 – 0:56:40] Erik: Five and a half to six feet of freeboard by the time it turned and headed south at one or two in the afternoon on November the 10th.
[0:56:41 – 0:56:44] Erik: That’s totally consistent with what was reported.
[0:56:45 – 0:56:53] Erik: The Fitzgerald was not equipped with a sounding tube or other device to measure the presence or amount of water in its hold, which is insane.
[0:56:53 – 0:56:58] Adam: How often do they get to port and they’re like, hey, your taconite’s all full of water, guy.
[0:56:58 – 0:56:59] Adam: It doesn’t seem…
[0:56:59 – 0:57:00] Adam: It doesn’t seem…
[0:57:00 – 0:57:02] Adam: It doesn’t seem like that’s a real thing that’s happening.
[0:57:02 – 0:57:04] Erik: How is there no way… Like, I don’t understand…
[0:57:04 – 0:57:04] Erik: I also don’t understand…
[0:57:04 – 0:57:06] Adam: It’s been in a storm before.
[0:57:06 – 0:57:08] Erik: Why you can’t pump water out of…
[0:57:09 – 0:57:10] Erik: Cargo holds.
[0:57:10 – 0:57:21] Adam: Well, they could nowadays, but the way their pumps were distributed, it was only for the ballast tanks in the center of the cargo hold.
[0:57:21 – 0:57:27] Adam: But if the ship was on one side or the other, the water would slosh around to the edges where the pump couldn’t get at it.
[0:57:28 – 0:57:28] Adam: It’s listing.
[0:57:28 – 0:57:30] Adam: They didn’t have pumps at the edges.
[0:57:30 – 0:57:32] Adam: They only had pumps in the middle.
[0:57:32 – 0:57:36] Adam: So it was pretty limiting in what they could really get.
[0:57:36 – 0:57:42] Adam: Once it started turning, you know, like listing, then it was kind of like, well, there’s nothing we can do about that anymore.
[0:57:42 – 0:57:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:43 – 0:57:44] Erik: There’s something creepy.
[0:57:44 – 0:57:45] Erik: C.S.
[0:57:45 – 0:57:45] Erik: Loosemore.
[0:57:45 – 0:57:47] Erik: Did you see him in any of the…
[0:57:47 – 0:57:48] Adam: He’s a freak.
[0:57:48 – 0:57:49] Adam: Videos?
[0:57:49 – 0:57:50] Adam: Yeah, he’s a freak.
[0:57:50 – 0:57:52] Adam: He’s up there with High Note?
[0:57:52 – 0:57:52] Erik: Worse.
[0:57:52 – 0:57:53] Erik: Wow.
[0:57:53 – 0:57:57] Adam: Yeah, he’s got all the whole black eyes like Brother Justin from Carnival.
[0:57:58 – 0:57:59] Erik: Should I not quote him anymore?
[0:57:59 – 0:58:00] Erik: Is he unreputable?
[0:58:00 – 0:58:01] Adam: No, he is unreputable.
[0:58:02 – 0:58:04] Adam: He’s a man of integrity for sure.
[0:58:05 – 0:58:05] Erik: All right.
[0:58:07 – 0:58:08] Erik: Here’s more C.S.
[0:58:09 – 0:58:09] Erik: Loosemore.
[0:58:09 – 0:58:10] Erik: He’s just a freak.
[0:58:10 – 0:58:11] Erik: Who could have noticed it?
[0:58:12 – 0:58:12] Erik: C.S.
[0:58:12 – 0:58:16] Erik: Loosemore wondered when questioned about it long after the report was issued.
[0:58:17 – 0:58:22] Erik: You’ve got the pilot house in front, the engine in the back, and these tunnels in between.
[0:58:22 – 0:58:25] Erik: There’s no direct access or flow reading system.
[0:58:25 – 0:58:28] Erik: No way of knowing how much water’s in the cargo hold.
[0:58:28 – 0:58:29] Erik: There’s always some water in there.
[0:58:30 – 0:58:31] Erik: This boat’s bouncing around.
[0:58:31 – 0:58:31] Erik: There always is, huh?
[0:58:32 – 0:58:34] Adam: Yeah, I mean, there’s always got to be some water.
[0:58:34 – 0:58:38] Adam: Is there a margin of like, oh, that’s an acceptable amount of water in the taco night?
[0:58:38 – 0:58:39] Erik: Probably.
[0:58:39 – 0:58:41] Erik: It’s like, I mean, you’ve been in any kind of a boat.
[0:58:42 – 0:58:43] Adam: Right, you get water in there.
[0:58:43 – 0:58:44] Adam: Even a min-2.
[0:58:44 – 0:58:45] Adam: There’s always a little water.
[0:58:45 – 0:58:45] Adam: It’s acceptable.
[0:58:45 – 0:58:46] Adam: It’s an acceptable amount.
[0:58:47 – 0:58:48] Adam: It’s not up to the lip.
[0:58:48 – 0:58:49] Erik: Right.
[0:58:49 – 0:58:50] Erik: Yeah, it’s a little bit down there.
[0:58:50 – 0:58:53] Erik: My map’s kind of sloshing back and forth.
[0:58:53 – 0:58:54] Adam: Yeah, the front of the dude’s back’s all wet.
[0:58:54 – 0:58:55] Adam: So what?
[0:58:55 – 0:58:56] Adam: Yeah, it’s fine.
[0:58:56 – 0:58:56] Adam: That’s acceptable.
[0:58:57 – 0:58:57] Adam: Exactly.
[0:58:57 – 0:58:57] Adam: Okay.
[0:58:57 – 0:59:01] Erik: Yeah, so I mean, I’m sure in comparison, you bring that up to size.
[0:59:01 – 0:59:05] Adam: So you bring like wet taconite to pour it and they’re like, that’s fine.
[0:59:05 – 0:59:06] Adam: It’s the way it is.
[0:59:06 – 0:59:07] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[0:59:08 – 0:59:15] Adam: And plus they’re all like connected and literally just like the holds are kind of separated by like mesh netting basically.
[0:59:15 – 0:59:15] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:16 – 0:59:17] Adam: Like, there’s not walls.
[0:59:17 – 0:59:20] Adam: This isn’t the Titanic where it’s all partitioned off.
[0:59:20 – 0:59:20] Erik: Yeah.
[0:59:20 – 0:59:30] Adam: It’s literally just one big hole, and they kind of got some stuff to, like, yeah, like, once you got water in there, I guess that would be unideal.
[0:59:32 – 0:59:48] Erik: probably not ideal and how would you tell yeah well that’s the thing is like there’s too much getting in yeah like that’s the one thing for me that always takes me just a little bit with this is I’m so used to seeing all of the boats that are out there now it’s
[0:59:49 – 1:00:07] Erik: back of the boat is the wheelhouse right are looking out on everything yeah i just always have to remind myself that even when i see it when i picture it in my head i still am picturing the boat going down with the wheelhouse at the back
[1:00:07 – 1:00:08] Erik: It’s right up front.
[1:00:08 – 1:00:10] Erik: It’s right at the front.
[1:00:10 – 1:00:21] Erik: There’s a high likelihood that the men in that wheelhouse saw the bottom of Lake Superior coming up with them at a disturbingly fast rate.
[1:00:22 – 1:00:23] Erik: It’s not going to come back.
[1:00:23 – 1:00:26] Erik: At what point are you like, well, that’s it?
[1:00:26 – 1:00:28] Erik: We’re hitting the bottom right now.
[1:00:29 – 1:00:31] Adam: But, like, again… Yeah, they were probably still alive when they hit the bottom.
[1:00:32 – 1:00:34] Adam: And, like, I don’t know if they were in the pilot house anymore, though.
[1:00:35 – 1:00:39] Adam: I think at one point they said the force probably would have driven them down the stairs out the back.
[1:00:39 – 1:00:39] Erik: Yeah, maybe.
[1:00:40 – 1:00:44] Erik: There’s some discrepancies over the open door, which…
[1:00:45 – 1:00:46] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[1:00:46 – 1:00:50] Adam: My front door just blows open every once in a while.
[1:00:50 – 1:00:53] Adam: It’s dead bolted, and I guarantee I shut it, and there it is.
[1:00:54 – 1:00:56] Adam: It just blows open from a mild wind.
[1:00:56 – 1:01:02] Erik: But it does lend to this argument that it’s like, yeah, there is no way of knowing.
[1:01:02 – 1:01:03] Erik: There’s no sensors.
[1:01:04 – 1:01:08] Erik: There’s nothing on board that would be like, hey, you got an extra couple thousand gallons.
[1:01:09 – 1:01:09] Erik: Yeah.
[1:01:10 – 1:01:11] Erik: You could maybe get a sense.
[1:01:11 – 1:01:13] Adam: You could just say it doesn’t feel quite right.
[1:01:13 – 1:01:17] Erik: Yeah, and you’re not even sitting there looking out onto your ship the whole time.
[1:01:17 – 1:01:18] Erik: Yeah, it’s just behind you.
[1:01:18 – 1:01:20] Erik: You’re just looking out onto the water.
[1:01:20 – 1:01:20] Erik: You can’t tell.
[1:01:20 – 1:01:21] Erik: You can maybe feel it.
[1:01:21 – 1:01:24] Erik: I’m sure some of these captains could probably get a sense.
[1:01:25 – 1:01:26] Erik: This thing feels a little heavy.
[1:01:26 – 1:01:27] Erik: It’s bogging to one side.
[1:01:27 – 1:01:29] Erik: It’s potentially rolling.
[1:01:29 – 1:01:30] Erik: Well, you reported a list, you know.
[1:01:30 – 1:01:33] Erik: A little bit, but like you wouldn’t really be able to tell.
[1:01:34 – 1:01:41] Erik: I mean, I’m sure you could go and look back, but considering the conditions, I’m sure there wasn’t like a great opportunity to go and like…
[1:01:42 – 1:01:45] Erik: see if the boat was riding five to six feet lower in the waves.
[1:01:45 – 1:01:47] Adam: They got tunnels and such.
[1:01:47 – 1:01:52] Adam: You can’t get a guy in the cargo hold, but I don’t know.
[1:01:53 – 1:01:58] Adam: I do wonder how much did they really know and they didn’t let on because it wouldn’t be honorable.
[1:01:58 – 1:02:00] Adam: You mentioned it in part one.
[1:02:01 – 1:02:05] Adam: You don’t besmirch a fellow master.
[1:02:06 – 1:02:11] Adam: To them, to get on the radio and actually admit they had a problem, unimaginable.
[1:02:12 – 1:02:14] Adam: Unless they really, really thought it was horrible.
[1:02:15 – 1:02:18] Adam: They were probably thinking, this is manageable.
[1:02:18 – 1:02:22] Adam: This is an acceptable amount of water to have in the bottom of your vessel.
[1:02:22 – 1:02:26] Erik: If they even thought that there was water, but what C.S.
[1:02:26 – 1:02:28] Erik: Loosemore, the wild man, the mad man, as you say.
[1:02:29 – 1:02:29] Adam: He’s a freak.
[1:02:30 – 1:02:31] Erik: The freak.
[1:02:32 – 1:02:33] Erik: His explanation for…
[1:02:36 – 1:02:46] Erik: And the reporting of some waves over the course of the Fitzgerald versus the Anderson in terms of their height.
[1:02:46 – 1:02:46] Adam: Yeah.
[1:02:46 – 1:02:51] Erik: He does say that nobody was reporting waves of the same stature that the Fitzgerald ran into.
[1:02:52 – 1:02:52] Erik: And the reason…
[1:02:54 – 1:02:58] Erik: I don’t know why he says poor old McSorley, but that is his quote.
[1:02:59 – 1:03:05] Erik: The reason is poor old McSorley was standing closer to the water than he’d been standing over the last 30 years.
[1:03:05 – 1:03:08] Adam: So he’s five to six feet closer to the lake.
[1:03:08 – 1:03:09] Adam: Right.
[1:03:09 – 1:03:10] Adam: So that’s going to affect your perception.
[1:03:10 – 1:03:13] Erik: So he thinks these waves are like, these are some 40 foot waves coming in.
[1:03:13 – 1:03:14] Erik: They’re going right over the top of us.
[1:03:14 – 1:03:19] Erik: They’re like 30, 35 footers, but you’re five to six feet lower in the water.
[1:03:20 – 1:03:31] Erik: The board arrested its hatch cover case on the belief that the cargo hold had flooded over a long period of time, perhaps beginning as far back as the Fitzgerald’s earliest encounter with the storm.
[1:03:33 – 1:03:45] Erik: At first, water could have entered the hold in relatively small amounts, but as the storm intensified and the fits had contend with massive waves sweeping over the spar deck, the volume of water entering the cargo hold would have increased exponentially.
[1:03:46 – 1:03:51] Erik: This, along with the water boarding the ship as the result of topside damage, led to the end.
[1:03:52 – 1:03:57] Adam: I don’t think people ever can be a good judge of exponential damage or progression.
[1:03:58 – 1:04:02] Adam: Just that one little bit here and there, but it keeps getting worse and worse and worse.
[1:04:02 – 1:04:10] Adam: And it’s not just like the exponential curve, if you’ve seen this plotted, it’s steep, Eric.
[1:04:10 – 1:04:15] Adam: I don’t think humans are good at perceiving that.
[1:04:15 – 1:04:29] Erik: No, I don’t think that they are either, but I think that there’s not necessarily anything wrong with what you said, but I think the term exponential implies that it is going to be easily and greatly found out quickly.
[1:04:29 – 1:04:36] Erik: But exponential, even if it’s on a microscopic scale, still can be a lot, but it still can go very unnoticed.
[1:04:36 – 1:04:38] Erik: And, like, something that gradual?
[1:04:39 – 1:04:40] Erik: Yeah.
[1:04:40 – 1:04:46] Erik: If that is indeed an aspect of this whole thing, I don’t think anybody would be at fault.
[1:04:46 – 1:04:47] Erik: Yeah.
[1:04:48 – 1:04:50] Adam: I don’t think we’d blame anybody for not noticing.
[1:04:51 – 1:04:51] Adam: Eh.
[1:04:52 – 1:04:52] Adam: Eh.
[1:04:52 – 1:04:53] Adam: I don’t know.
[1:04:53 – 1:04:54] Adam: You know?
[1:04:54 – 1:04:54] Adam: Oh, shit.
[1:04:54 – 1:04:56] Adam: Like, I think that’s exponential.
[1:04:56 – 1:04:57] Adam: Like, that’s…
[1:04:57 – 1:05:03] Adam: By the time you realize there’s a problem, it’s all of a sudden on this curve that you are not able to control.
[1:05:04 – 1:05:04] Adam: Yeah.
[1:05:05 – 1:05:05] Adam: That’s the whole point.
[1:05:06 – 1:05:09] Adam: It builds upon itself so rapidly.
[1:05:09 – 1:05:13] Adam: I hadn’t ever heard it described in that way either.
[1:05:13 – 1:05:14] Adam: Schumacher.
[1:05:15 – 1:05:15] Erik: Schumacher.
[1:05:16 – 1:05:24] Erik: Yeah, no, it’s just the difference of some of these reports right away.
[1:05:24 – 1:05:27] Erik: So the first one was the Coast Guard’s report.
[1:05:28 – 1:05:34] Erik: And then we get a president of the Lake Carriers Association, Paul E. Trimble.
[1:05:34 – 1:05:35] Erik: I don’t trust him at all.
[1:05:35 – 1:05:36] Erik: You don’t trust Trimble?
[1:05:37 – 1:05:37] Erik: No.
[1:05:37 – 1:05:56] Erik: He sent a formal dissent to the Coast Guard report claiming, quote, the lake shipping industry, proud of its safety record, through the years completely rejects the Coast Guard’s theoretical cause of the Fitzgerald sinking, arguing for a grounding that occurred near Sixth Fathom Shoal and outlined his explanation.
[1:05:58 – 1:05:59] Adam: What’s your problem with Trimble?
[1:06:00 – 1:06:01] Adam: He’s a goon.
[1:06:02 – 1:06:05] Erik: Yeah, you’ve seen some of these people in the flesh.
[1:06:07 – 1:06:08] Erik: All your videos.
[1:06:10 – 1:06:12] Adam: I got a lot of VHS tapes.
[1:06:12 – 1:06:20] Erik: Yeah, that’s the only way that any of these old documentaries need to be visited is on a hazy old Betamax, preferable.
[1:06:21 – 1:06:23] Adam: Yeah, like a lot of weird distortion.
[1:06:23 – 1:06:23] Erik: Yeah.
[1:06:24 – 1:06:25] Erik: Tracking.
[1:06:25 – 1:06:26] Erik: Get the tracking going.
[1:06:26 – 1:06:27] Adam: I forgot about tracking.
[1:06:27 – 1:06:29] Erik: Yeah.
[1:06:29 – 1:06:30] Erik: Throwback.
[1:06:36 – 1:06:37] Erik: Oh, it’s so cold.
[1:06:39 – 1:06:44] Erik: But at least we’re not at the bottom of the, not the briny deep.
[1:06:45 – 1:06:46] Adam: The fresh deep.
[1:06:47 – 1:06:48] Adam: Just the fresh deep.
[1:06:49 – 1:06:56] Erik: By the end of 1977, a number of theories had been provided based on hard evidence and expert testimony.
[1:06:57 – 1:07:01] Erik: But many questions still remained and the debate would rage on.
[1:07:03 – 1:07:22] Erik: In the years after the sinking, its legend grew out of the many books written about it in varying degrees of style, attempts to explain and reenact these writings, the lack of a final acceptable answer by all, and the success of the Gordon Lightfoot song.
[1:07:22 – 1:07:23] Erik: I think you said it right, the success.
[1:07:23 – 1:07:33] Erik: Success of the Gordon Lightfoot song only contributed to fan the flames of intrigue by the public in a continued search for closure.
[1:07:34 – 1:07:40] Erik: by the families and the generally obsessed of the 29 aboard.
[1:07:40 – 1:07:46] Erik: I can see the families being obsessed and wanting to find an answer.
[1:07:47 – 1:07:48] Erik: But some of these guys…
[1:07:50 – 1:07:53] Erik: They just need to find, like, another hobby or something.
[1:07:54 – 1:07:56] Adam: You know, talk to your family or something.
[1:07:56 – 1:07:57] Erik: I’m intrigued.
[1:07:57 – 1:07:58] Erik: It’s intriguing.
[1:07:58 – 1:07:59] Erik: I’m intrigued.
[1:07:59 – 1:08:04] Erik: I’m not pulling out, like, nautical schematic rolls of maps.
[1:08:04 – 1:08:05] Erik: Like, not just one.
[1:08:05 – 1:08:08] Erik: Like, whole sheets, slews, different years.
[1:08:08 – 1:08:10] Erik: Satellites are wrong.
[1:08:11 – 1:08:11] Adam: I mean.
[1:08:12 – 1:08:14] Adam: Yeah, when you call him a QAnon freak, you’re right.
[1:08:14 – 1:08:16] Adam: Heinolt would have been QAnon.
[1:08:16 – 1:08:17] Adam: He’s a nut.
[1:08:17 – 1:08:18] Adam: Yeah, maybe he’s QAnon.
[1:08:19 – 1:08:42] Adam: um he is q i don’t yeah geez uh yeah he is q when i found when i found out that in 1980 jacques cousteau and his ship the calypso sent a mini sub down do you have the name of the mini sub from the calypso do you know what it is i don’t have it i do uh i did watch fitzgerald investigations and uh
[1:08:44 – 1:08:46] Adam: It’s got a pretty funny name is all I remember.
[1:08:46 – 1:08:50] Adam: And I was like, that could be something we should definitely mention.
[1:08:50 – 1:08:53] Adam: But it’s definitely not worth holding up the program over at this point.
[1:08:54 – 1:08:58] Adam: It was just something like, it was an incredible word I’d never heard before.
[1:08:58 – 1:09:01] Adam: And I was like, of course, that’s Cousteau’s summary name.
[1:09:01 – 1:09:03] Adam: It would be funny to talk about it.
[1:09:03 – 1:09:06] Adam: But I never did write it down or type it out.
[1:09:07 – 1:09:09] Adam: Most of my notes for this are typed out at this point.
[1:09:09 – 1:09:11] Erik: Oh, it’s the Clelia.
[1:09:11 – 1:09:12] Adam: The Clelia.
[1:09:12 – 1:09:12] Adam: Yeah.
[1:09:13 – 1:09:13] Adam: There it is.
[1:09:13 – 1:09:14] Adam: I knew I had it.
[1:09:14 – 1:09:15] Adam: You did have it.
[1:09:15 – 1:09:15] Adam: Yeah.
[1:09:15 – 1:09:18] Erik: Jacques Cousteau wasn’t on the Clelia.
[1:09:18 – 1:09:19] Erik: He wasn’t even on the Calypso.
[1:09:19 – 1:09:19] Erik: Or on the Calypso.
[1:09:19 – 1:09:24] Erik: He was at like some gala event with like- In Port-au-Petit.
[1:09:24 – 1:09:25] Erik: Yeah.
[1:09:26 – 1:09:29] Erik: Well, he probably would have been in like Detroit or something.
[1:09:29 – 1:09:34] Erik: Something in the general vicinity that had him, I have to be there.
[1:09:34 – 1:09:37] Erik: Might as well throw my boat at the Endeavor.
[1:09:40 – 1:09:48] Erik: But Jacusto and his ship, the Calypso, and their mini-sub, the Kalilia… She never really loved me.
[1:09:48 – 1:10:00] Erik: No, and they were barely even there to do anything, specifically to provide any kind of conclusion afterwards.
[1:10:02 – 1:10:04] Erik: The famous boat and its crew…
[1:10:05 – 1:10:13] Erik: Specifically said that we were never here to make any kind of a serious scientific study or conclusion.
[1:10:14 – 1:10:14] Erik: They said that.
[1:10:14 – 1:10:17] Adam: They’re just covering their, you know.
[1:10:17 – 1:10:17] Erik: Yeah.
[1:10:19 – 1:10:27] Erik: But then in 1989, the research vessel, the Grayling and its advanced research vehicle.
[1:10:28 – 1:10:29] Erik: I don’t think this one has a name.
[1:10:29 – 1:10:33] Erik: Just another one of those like remote operated little submarine things.
[1:10:33 – 1:10:34] Erik: Dove back.
[1:10:35 – 1:10:35] Erik: Dork.
[1:10:37 – 1:10:38] Erik: Found multiple new discoveries.
[1:10:40 – 1:10:41] Erik: the door to the pilot house was open.
[1:10:42 – 1:10:51] Erik: Tons of taconite covered the wreckage, almost as if the stern floated upside down as it sank, dropping taconite as it did.
[1:10:53 – 1:11:03] Erik: Which again, I think maybe one of those things where you’re like, well, how are they not finding that out on like immediate dives?
[1:11:03 – 1:11:03] Erik: Like it’s,
[1:11:04 – 1:11:25] Erik: almost 15 years later and you’re now just realizing there’s taconite everywhere I’m but also the existence of taconite everywhere doesn’t I mean the thing is full of it yeah it’s a taconite ship wreck there’s gonna be there’s gonna be taconite everywhere taconite everywhere that’s why I was always like with Heinle he’s like there’s taconite above like way like in front of the boat I’m like
[1:11:25 – 1:11:34] Erik: Have you ever been to Taco Bell and dropped a coin down one of those coin dropper things and seen how far away from the goal it goes?
[1:11:34 – 1:11:35] Erik: It always slides way over.
[1:11:35 – 1:11:41] Adam: I know exactly what you’re talking about, about the Taco Night at Taco Bell coin dropper game.
[1:11:41 – 1:11:42] Adam: Did you ever land one?
[1:11:43 – 1:11:43] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[1:11:43 – 1:11:44] Adam: Free taco.
[1:11:44 – 1:11:44] Adam: Yeah.
[1:11:46 – 1:12:00] Erik: pretty good feeling it’s pretty good we always just pretty easy easy quarter lander just kind of get that like one like beef and cheese the cheapest like such a great deal by you dropping a quarter in there they probably still somehow make money
[1:12:01 – 1:12:02] Adam: They do, yeah.
[1:12:02 – 1:12:03] Adam: It’s all calculated for sure.
[1:12:05 – 1:12:15] Erik: But it’s like he’s almost seeming like he’s pinning his entire argument on the fact that there is taconite in front of where the boats… Of course it got up there.
[1:12:15 – 1:12:17] Erik: Well, yeah, of course it did.
[1:12:17 – 1:12:17] Erik: Shit.
[1:12:17 – 1:12:18] Adam: Did you see what it was like on the surface?
[1:12:18 – 1:12:24] Adam: Hit the bottom at 18 miles an hour and just the entire middle of the ship exploded.
[1:12:24 – 1:12:28] Adam: So I’m assuming there’s taconite all over the place.
[1:12:28 – 1:12:28] Erik: Yeah.
[1:12:30 – 1:12:37] Erik: I mean, I have no idea what the science or the physics of like a single ball of taconite sinking to the bottom of the lake.
[1:12:37 – 1:12:39] Erik: But they seem like they’re porous.
[1:12:39 – 1:12:41] Adam: Plus they’re super loaded with water.
[1:12:41 – 1:12:42] Adam: So they’re probably even heavier.
[1:12:42 – 1:12:44] Erik: They probably have taken on water.
[1:12:45 – 1:12:46] Erik: So they are definitely heavier.
[1:12:47 – 1:12:48] Erik: And they’re probably not just…
[1:12:48 – 1:12:53] Erik: I mean, they’re probably about as close to sinking right to the bottom as anything.
[1:12:53 – 1:12:53] Erik: But…
[1:12:55 – 1:13:03] Erik: Who knows the action of the way that that thing ripped apart and turned and maybe threw some…
[1:13:03 – 1:13:07] Adam: I just don’t like that half of it’s upside down.
[1:13:07 – 1:13:09] Erik: Well, the whole middle section is…
[1:13:09 – 1:13:14] Adam: It’s all messed up in the middle, but I just don’t like that it’s just…
[1:13:17 – 1:13:23] Adam: It ain’t right that the stern and the after are laying upside down of each other.
[1:13:26 – 1:13:29] Adam: It’s just insult to injury, I guess, really.
[1:13:29 – 1:13:32] Erik: Also, I mean, it’s one of those things where it’s like… Yeah.
[1:13:32 – 1:13:37] Adam: It looks, like you said, just looking into the diorama of it, it just looks wrong.
[1:13:38 – 1:13:38] Erik: No, it doesn’t.
[1:13:38 – 1:13:39] Erik: Like, yeah, there’s…
[1:13:42 – 1:14:00] Erik: Even with the explanation, as far as it sounds like both of us maybe are kind of leaning towards, which is the thing plowed into the bottom of the lake, didn’t break apart on the surface, broke apart at like a 45 degree angle.
[1:14:01 – 1:14:01] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[1:14:02 – 1:14:25] Erik: It’s still – it’s just – it’s crazy that in only 500 and whatever, 70 feet, 530 feet, that there would be that much room for the effects to be displayed in such a – just a catastrophic way that provides like no insight.
[1:14:25 – 1:14:26] Erik: It’s not like, oh –
[1:14:27 – 1:14:28] Erik: We got here.
[1:14:28 – 1:14:29] Erik: Here it is.
[1:14:30 – 1:14:31] Erik: This is the skid mark.
[1:14:31 – 1:14:33] Erik: This is the blood trail.
[1:14:33 – 1:14:34] Erik: This is the splatter.
[1:14:34 – 1:14:47] Erik: It’s not a crime scene that I wouldn’t imagine that more than a couple of hundred people can even venture a guess on in terms of like a forensic, like a boat crash forensics.
[1:14:47 – 1:14:50] Erik: Like you have to take so many things into account.
[1:14:50 – 1:14:50] Erik: Like,
[1:14:51 – 1:14:52] Erik: How did it turn upside down?
[1:14:53 – 1:14:54] Erik: Why did it turn upside down?
[1:14:54 – 1:14:56] Erik: Why is there taconite everywhere?
[1:14:56 – 1:15:00] Erik: Why are some of the things where they are on the bottom of the ocean?
[1:15:00 – 1:15:04] Erik: It’s all these like interesting dynamics, like water dynamics.
[1:15:05 – 1:15:05] Erik: Everything gets taken.
[1:15:05 – 1:15:09] Erik: It says in the wire, you know, you’re not just like bullet hole.
[1:15:10 – 1:15:26] Erik: right dead person hair on a doorknob it’s not it’s crazy like it’s all there but it’s also like to have I don’t know five four to ten minutes of
[1:15:28 – 1:15:34] Erik: what happened to be displayed in all of its repercussions on the bottom of the lake.
[1:15:34 – 1:15:36] Adam: This is where it is now.
[1:15:36 – 1:15:37] Erik: This is where it is now.
[1:15:37 – 1:15:39] Erik: Who knows what happened in the few minutes?
[1:15:39 – 1:15:42] Erik: Like it’s missing time.
[1:15:42 – 1:15:43] Erik: It is.
[1:15:43 – 1:15:48] Erik: And like the idea that the space going down and looking at it is going to provide any answers.
[1:15:48 – 1:15:49] Erik: And you just assume that it will.
[1:15:49 – 1:15:50] Erik: And it doesn’t.
[1:15:50 – 1:15:54] Erik: If anything, it asks more is the most frustrating part.
[1:15:56 – 1:16:02] Adam: What about how the original survey with the Curve 3, and they were like, there’s no bell.
[1:16:04 – 1:16:05] Adam: There’s no bell there.
[1:16:05 – 1:16:09] Adam: And then they went back later, and they’re like, the bell is clearly right where it should be.
[1:16:10 – 1:16:16] Adam: So that threw a lot of shade at the original conclusions that the Coast Guard had put out.
[1:16:16 – 1:16:17] Adam: Was there anything about that in the book?
[1:16:17 – 1:16:23] Adam: Because that was definitely part of several of my favorite documentaries I watched.
[1:16:24 – 1:16:49] Adam: is that the missing bell thing like well they claim the bell was missing but then it was like clearly seen and recovered later so it was like well how thorough of a job were they doing or were they just like and we’re gonna throw something up there as you had suggested earlier they like gotta put out some information sure somebody was just like i don’t know say you didn’t see the bell or whatever because they hadn’t i didn’t read anything they should have caught it
[1:16:49 – 1:16:56] Erik: Yeah, I didn’t read anything in here that suggested that there were any reports that came out claiming that there wasn’t a bell.
[1:16:57 – 1:17:03] Erik: But there was a whole lot at the end of the book about the bell being removed.
[1:17:04 – 1:17:04] Erik: Right.
[1:17:05 – 1:17:13] Erik: And then replacing it with basically like a ceremonial bell, taking the old one off and putting a different one on.
[1:17:14 – 1:17:15] Adam: Yeah, it’s a memorial.
[1:17:15 – 1:17:19] Erik: But I didn’t hear anything about like, oh, when they went down originally, there wasn’t any bell.
[1:17:20 – 1:17:21] Adam: No, I didn’t see that.
[1:17:21 – 1:17:34] Adam: That was part of that Investigations documentary, and they’re like, yeah, the original Coast Guard report says the bell is missing, which is odd because they later found it just like right where it should be.
[1:17:35 – 1:17:37] Adam: So, you know, I don’t know.
[1:17:37 – 1:17:42] Adam: It’s just one of those little details you hear when you’re spending this much time
[1:17:45 – 1:17:51] Adam: trying to find out about something like this that just sticks with you a little bit.
[1:17:51 – 1:17:53] Adam: What is the significance of the bell?
[1:17:53 – 1:17:57] Adam: It seems like the bell is the soul of the ship.
[1:17:57 – 1:17:58] Adam: Do I understand this right?
[1:17:58 – 1:18:06] Adam: I guess people are probably wondering, why is a Boundary Waters podcast spending this much time on a big boat?
[1:18:06 – 1:18:12] Adam: It is still a border water, and it is still a boat, and that pretty much fits the parameters of the show.
[1:18:16 – 1:18:20] Adam: Yeah, like, what is the… What is the soul of the vessel?
[1:18:20 – 1:18:22] Adam: You know, canoes don’t have bells.
[1:18:23 – 1:18:31] Adam: But it seems like the bell holds more significance in this kind of boat than a normal vessel.
[1:18:31 – 1:18:38] Adam: But… Was there any, like, mention of, like, the significance of the bell, like, as part of the boat?
[1:18:39 – 1:18:40] Erik: No, I don’t know.
[1:18:40 – 1:18:42] Erik: I mean, well, yeah, I think it’s implied.
[1:18:42 – 1:18:43] Erik: Like…
[1:18:44 – 1:18:46] Adam: They’re really using it, though.
[1:18:46 – 1:18:50] Adam: Like, when they come under the lift bridge nowadays, they just kind of blast this, like, crazy speaker horn.
[1:18:50 – 1:18:52] Adam: They’re not, like, ringing a, like, a ding-a-ling.
[1:18:52 – 1:18:54] Erik: No, I mean, no, yeah.
[1:18:54 – 1:18:55] Erik: I don’t think that they’re doing that either.
[1:18:58 – 1:18:59] Adam: But I think it’s…
[1:18:59 – 1:19:09] Adam: I guess the fact that, like, people put so much emphasis on the bell and then, like, replacing it with a bell with all the crew members’ names on it, clearly it has significance.
[1:19:09 – 1:19:11] Erik: I just hadn’t thought of it.
[1:19:11 – 1:19:13] Erik: Yeah, we’re definitely kind of, like…
[1:19:14 – 1:19:16] Erik: We’re at the end here, obviously.
[1:19:16 – 1:19:42] Erik: And unfortunately, what it seems like is the vast majority of the ends of any kind of reporting on this, they end with like the legal controversies that go into returning to, because there was another shipwreck or another, yeah, shipwreck like research crew that went down.
[1:19:44 – 1:19:54] Erik: And with that, they actually did discover bodies and they had footage and images of it.
[1:19:55 – 1:20:10] Erik: And though none of it ever was provided to like news agencies or, or anything, I can’t even imagine if anything like this occurred now, like I’m sure you could find deep, dark, weird places on the internet, but,
[1:20:11 – 1:20:14] Erik: Where that would be something that somebody wanted to see.
[1:20:15 – 1:20:18] Erik: But that’s when it finally kind of came to like, oh, right.
[1:20:19 – 1:20:28] Erik: We’ve done 30 years of research into this disaster.
[1:20:28 – 1:20:30] Erik: And now there’s people going down.
[1:20:31 – 1:20:36] Erik: They’re finding things that have always kind of been in the backs of families’ minds as worst case scenario.
[1:20:38 – 1:20:45] Erik: Because, again, we don’t have to get into the whole science of Lake Superior, but it preserves whatever goes down there.
[1:20:46 – 1:20:47] Erik: Nothing even really barely rusts.
[1:20:48 – 1:20:53] Erik: It’s so cold, there’s not really anything happening.
[1:20:53 – 1:21:02] Erik: There’s famously logs that get pulled out of the bottom of that lake and then are basically in prime condition to make the best furniture in the world.
[1:21:03 – 1:21:07] Erik: It’s just an insane lake that preserves anything that’s at the bottom of it.
[1:21:07 – 1:21:10] Erik: And all of a sudden you’ve got these people with cameras and…
[1:21:12 – 1:21:20] Erik: Providing potential pictures and videos that may or may not even be leading to any kind of an explanation anymore.
[1:21:20 – 1:21:28] Erik: Almost seems like it’s starting to border on voyeurism and people just wanting to go and see and say that they saw it.
[1:21:28 – 1:21:34] Erik: And so then they finally had to eventually declare it as like a gravesite.
[1:21:34 – 1:21:35] Erik: You can’t go down there anymore.
[1:21:36 – 1:21:41] Adam: Yeah, and so are you even able to, like, drive a boat near it?
[1:21:41 – 1:21:42] Adam: I’m sure you can.
[1:21:42 – 1:21:47] Adam: Or, like, because you sometimes look at the ship tracker, and it’s like, it looks like they’re going right over the spot.
[1:21:47 – 1:21:52] Adam: But I kind of wonder if it’s more one of those things where you’re not allowed to go in this zone anymore.
[1:21:53 – 1:22:00] Adam: Like, it’s just unwritten rule, and they actually have it marked on, like, the shipping, you know, maps.
[1:22:01 – 1:22:03] Adam: I’m sorry, it would be called charts sometimes.
[1:22:03 – 1:22:33] Erik: right no yeah I’m I have no idea like I mean there’s very few things that I feel comfortable with speaking authoritatively on that would be something I’d ask when we get our tour on the got yeah the tour the tour I want to see your charts yeah I have no idea I would have to imagine it’s fine to sail over a shipwreck though
[1:22:34 – 1:22:35] Adam: I mean, can you really help it?
[1:22:36 – 1:22:38] Erik: I mean, I wouldn’t want to.
[1:22:38 – 1:22:44] Erik: If I was a captain of a ship, I wouldn’t be like, we’re right above the eddy fits right now.
[1:22:44 – 1:22:45] Erik: Like, no, that’s creepy.
[1:22:45 – 1:22:45] Erik: It’s weird.
[1:22:46 – 1:22:50] Erik: And also the auspices under which it sank.
[1:22:51 – 1:22:55] Erik: Some of the bigger theories are that it kind of ran aground.
[1:22:55 – 1:22:57] Erik: So maybe we shouldn’t be in this area.
[1:22:59 – 1:23:03] Erik: It seemed like it got into that area based on the conditions.
[1:23:03 – 1:23:12] Erik: So most boats these days, especially if they have cargo hold water pumping systems, they probably don’t even get in half the trouble if the eddy fits got into.
[1:23:12 – 1:23:14] Erik: But yeah, I have no idea.
[1:23:14 – 1:23:18] Erik: But I know that some of the last dives were in the mid to late 90s.
[1:23:20 – 1:23:33] Erik: There were a couple of guys that dove down there just on their own, like borderline at the time, like record free, like not free dives, but like unsupported scuba dives.
[1:23:33 – 1:23:41] Erik: Went down, like hung an arm off of like the rail and got like some selfies of them down there, which is crazy.
[1:23:41 – 1:23:42] Erik: Ooh, I don’t like that.
[1:23:42 – 1:23:43] Erik: I don’t like that at all.
[1:23:44 – 1:23:45] Erik: I couldn’t even imagine.
[1:23:45 – 1:23:45] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[1:23:46 – 1:23:47] Erik: I love scuba diving.
[1:23:47 – 1:23:48] Erik: Or not scuba.
[1:23:48 – 1:23:53] Erik: I love snorkeling at a depth that the sun still feels warm on my back.
[1:23:54 – 1:24:00] Erik: If I’m ever diving where the rays of the sun no longer hits, like, yeah, I’m out.
[1:24:00 – 1:24:01] Erik: Count me out.
[1:24:01 – 1:24:01] Erik: No way.
[1:24:02 – 1:24:08] Erik: If it takes me three hours to get back to the surface so I don’t die from the bends, not an option.
[1:24:09 – 1:24:10] Erik: Not an option at all.
[1:24:13 – 1:24:20] Adam: Yeah, I suppose anybody could just go out there and probably get to it if you had the ability to do so.
[1:24:20 – 1:24:21] Erik: Yeah.
[1:24:22 – 1:24:23] Adam: Odd to think of this.
[1:24:25 – 1:24:30] Adam: It’s been so long, but it does still feel like it wasn’t that long ago.
[1:24:32 – 1:24:38] Erik: No, it doesn’t really feel like it… On one hand, it feels like it happened a long time ago, but then once you…
[1:24:38 – 1:24:40] Adam: I mean, it happened before I was born, you know?
[1:24:40 – 1:24:44] Adam: So, yeah, it happened a long time ago, but it’s not like…
[1:24:45 – 1:24:49] Adam: I mean, it’s still like those boats out there we saw today or yesterday.
[1:24:50 – 1:24:53] Adam: That’s all the same technology, essentially.
[1:24:53 – 1:24:55] Adam: Probably have better pumps now.
[1:24:55 – 1:24:57] Adam: They probably have better communication systems now.
[1:24:59 – 1:25:01] Adam: Who knows what it’s like to be on one of them.
[1:25:01 – 1:25:01] Erik: Yeah.
[1:25:02 – 1:25:05] Adam: But it’s probably not all that different than it was in 75.
[1:25:06 – 1:25:15] Adam: That’s, I guess, where it just gets to you because it’s like, well, you see them, and we don’t see them that often.
[1:25:15 – 1:25:17] Adam: People are probably like, what the hell is wrong with these guys?
[1:25:17 – 1:25:19] Adam: They live on Superior.
[1:25:19 – 1:25:20] Adam: They see them all the time.
[1:25:20 – 1:25:21] Adam: We don’t.
[1:25:21 – 1:25:26] Adam: They only come around at the very beginning and end of the season when the winds are bad.
[1:25:26 – 1:25:26] Erik: Right.
[1:25:27 – 1:25:28] Adam: And they kind of hug the shore.
[1:25:28 – 1:25:29] Adam: Otherwise we never see these boats.
[1:25:30 – 1:25:32] Adam: So it is sort of a treat to see these boats.
[1:25:33 – 1:25:40] Adam: And then to think about like, you know, seeing the Stuart J court or big Paul go by.
[1:25:40 – 1:25:48] Adam: And it’s like essentially the same, these, but those boats are not all that much older than what the Fitzgerald was really in the grand scheme of things.
[1:25:48 – 1:25:48] Erik: Yeah.
[1:25:48 – 1:25:53] Adam: It’s really kind of the same structurally, like the way they’re built, probably very similar.
[1:25:53 – 1:25:53] Adam: Yeah.
[1:25:54 – 1:25:55] Erik: Yeah, totally.
[1:25:55 – 1:26:01] Erik: The whole bell thing, it’s a lot of the end of this book, actually.
[1:26:01 – 1:26:03] Erik: If you want to read about the…
[1:26:03 – 1:26:04] Adam: The significance.
[1:26:05 – 1:26:10] Erik: The legacy, the litigation, everything that went into taking the bell out.
[1:26:11 – 1:26:11] Adam: Placing the new bell.
[1:26:12 – 1:26:12] Erik: Putting the new bell down.
[1:26:14 – 1:26:14] Erik: It’s all there.
[1:26:14 – 1:26:24] Erik: I mean, there’s an argument that some believe that it was unethical, unnecessarily dangerous, disturbing of a gravesite.
[1:26:24 – 1:26:25] Erik: I mean, it’s all there.
[1:26:25 – 1:26:26] Adam: Why touch it?
[1:26:26 – 1:26:27] Adam: Yeah, why touch it?
[1:26:27 – 1:26:27] Adam: Why?
[1:26:27 – 1:26:28] Erik: Just make a new one.
[1:26:30 – 1:26:32] Adam: Put the one you want up in the museum.
[1:26:32 – 1:26:33] Adam: I don’t like touching it at all.
[1:26:33 – 1:26:34] Erik: Right.
[1:26:35 – 1:26:52] Erik: In an editorial published on the day of the Bell recovery, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which is an amazing name for a newspaper, spoke in favor of making the Bell recovery a springboard to declaring the Fitzgerald grave site off limits to divers.
[1:26:53 – 1:27:00] Erik: The Fitzgerald isn’t a coral reef or a wreck from the 1800s or some other sightseeing venue.
[1:27:01 – 1:27:09] Erik: It is a tomb, and the only difference between it and other crypts is that it is 535 feet below the lake.
[1:27:10 – 1:27:14] Erik: Those hapless sailors would never have chosen such a resting place.
[1:27:15 – 1:27:16] Erik: Fate brought them there.
[1:27:17 – 1:27:18] Erik: They deserve to rest in peace.
[1:27:21 – 1:27:26] Erik: I appreciate most of that comment, although I don’t appreciate hapless as being a descriptor.
[1:27:26 – 1:27:27] Erik: Hapless sailors.
[1:27:27 – 1:27:27] Erik: Yeah.
[1:27:36 – 1:27:53] Erik: so yeah on July 17th 1999 the the bell was removed and the ceremony took place above the site of the wreckage
[1:27:56 – 1:28:03] Erik: For the first time in the history of the lakes, the wreckage of a commercial freighter was going to be formally consecrated as a gravesite.
[1:28:04 – 1:28:18] Erik: And the 290-foot Coast Guard Cutter Mackinac, carrying friends and family of the lost crewman, was about to function as a church with Father Richard Ingalls conducting the services.
[1:28:18 – 1:28:21] Erik: Which is really weird.
[1:28:22 – 1:28:24] Erik: Sitting on a boat like that.
[1:28:26 – 1:28:29] Erik: Rows of folding chairs lined the deck of the Mackinac.
[1:28:30 – 1:28:34] Erik: Canadian and American flags stood on either side of a podium near the stern railing.
[1:28:35 – 1:28:41] Erik: In front of the podium, a small replica of the Fitzgerald Bell waited silently on a table.
[1:28:42 – 1:28:44] Erik: Two large wreaths, one donated by…
[1:28:46 – 1:28:54] Erik: one donated by Gordon Lightfoot, and 30 long-stemmed red carnations rested on two tables nearby.
[1:28:55 – 1:29:00] Erik: The service would be the closing of a circle as well as the formal consecration of a gravesite.
[1:29:05 – 1:29:09] Erik: The involvement of Gordon Lightfoot is just…
[1:29:10 – 1:29:11] Adam: He donated a whole wreath?
[1:29:12 – 1:29:14] Adam: I mean… That’s pretty nice.
[1:29:14 – 1:29:14] Adam: Yeah.
[1:29:15 – 1:29:15] Adam: Nice touch.
[1:29:16 – 1:29:21] Erik: For those aboard the Mackinac, there was hope in the sense of finality.
[1:29:23 – 1:29:29] Adam: I mean, I guess there’s some point in having art to explain something that’s hard to explain.
[1:29:29 – 1:29:33] Adam: But yeah, why Gordon Lightfoot got to be such a big part of this story.
[1:29:34 – 1:29:36] Adam: I mean, it’s not a good song.
[1:29:37 – 1:29:39] Adam: You know, obviously it’s a great song.
[1:29:39 – 1:29:39] Adam: It’s fine.
[1:29:39 – 1:29:42] Adam: But it’s also really annoying.
[1:29:42 – 1:29:45] Adam: And I’m so sick of hearing the song at this point.
[1:29:45 – 1:29:49] Adam: But every year in November, you’re like, you can hear it in your head.
[1:29:49 – 1:29:50] Adam: It is catchy.
[1:29:52 – 1:29:53] Adam: I just don’t know.
[1:29:53 – 1:29:56] Adam: He doesn’t deserve to be as big a part of the story as he is.
[1:29:56 – 1:29:57] Adam: Right.
[1:29:57 – 1:29:59] Erik: It seems like he’s an authority on the whole thing.
[1:29:59 – 1:30:01] Adam: Yeah, and now he’s throwing wreaths around.
[1:30:02 – 1:30:03] Adam: Arrow!
[1:30:05 – 1:30:06] Erik: We’re almost done.
[1:30:06 – 1:30:09] Erik: Then you can chew on all the 2x6s you want.
[1:30:09 – 1:30:10] Erik: Take it down a notch.
[1:30:12 – 1:30:13] Erik: Well, this isn’t my favorite part.
[1:30:14 – 1:30:14] Erik: I love the…
[1:30:19 – 1:30:28] Erik: You can’t necessarily get to your point as a writer without getting to a point where you understand that stories like this need to end this way.
[1:30:29 – 1:30:33] Erik: But I always like when I find out… And who knows?
[1:30:34 – 1:30:41] Erik: You pick and choose the events and how you portray them to describe something in this way.
[1:30:42 – 1:30:43] Erik: I think it’s poignant.
[1:30:43 – 1:30:45] Erik: I think what we’ve talked about and what our…
[1:30:47 – 1:31:13] Erik: experiences with this and why we think it’s unique why it brings some odd connection to where we live there’s something about this last little bit and this is where we’re going to end which i think wraps up this book appropriately and it kind of brings me
[1:31:15 – 1:31:21] Erik: just like a step closer to a weird connection to this whole story.
[1:31:23 – 1:31:27] Erik: For those aboard the Mackinac, there was hope in the sense of finality.
[1:31:27 – 1:31:40] Erik: After finishing taps, one of the buglers faced the families and played Revile, an upbeat finale that underscored the remarks offered by Robert N. Dunn at the end of the ceremony.
[1:31:44 – 1:31:54] Erik: Dunn, a Chicago attorney instrumental in the planning of the service, expressed the hope that the consecration of the site would permit the Fitzgerald’s crew to rest in peace.
[1:31:55 – 1:31:59] Erik: He then paraphrased a poem by a poet whose name he didn’t know.
[1:32:00 – 1:32:01] Erik: Classic.
[1:32:02 – 1:32:10] Erik: And so let us remember the love and the strength of the men of the Edmund Fitzgerald when we say they are gone.
[1:32:10 – 1:32:11] Erik: Gone where?
[1:32:12 – 1:32:14] Erik: Gone from your sight is all.
[1:32:16 – 1:32:22] Erik: They are just as large in your hearts and prayers as when you last saw them.
[1:32:22 – 1:32:33] Erik: And just at the moment when you are saying they are gone, there are old friends and loved ones saying they are here, safe and happy with us.
[1:32:34 – 1:32:40] Erik: And when your ship sails over the horizon toward the other shore, the sun will shine brightly on you.
[1:32:41 – 1:32:45] Erik: and will hear your glad shout saying, here they come.
[1:32:47 – 1:32:55] Erik: The ceremony ended and the Mackinac headed back to Detroit, where the family members would say their goodbyes until the next time they had occasion to gather.
[1:32:57 – 1:33:08] Erik: Reunions based on tragedies, even reunions like this one, which was supposed to have been somber yet joyous, always left a dull ache afterward, and this would be no exception.
[1:33:10 – 1:33:18] Erik: Some of the family members would see one another within a few months when another anniversary arrived and they’d gather in Detroit or Whitefish Point.
[1:33:19 – 1:33:33] Erik: For others, the next big meeting would be a little more than a year away when the 25th anniversary came around and there was bound to be another round of commemorations accompanying a spike in the public interest in the story.
[1:33:34 – 1:33:36] Erik: The Mackinac arrived at the Sault Ste.
[1:33:36 – 1:33:39] Erik: Marie locks after a pleasant trip down the lake.
[1:33:41 – 1:33:49] Erik: The Coast Guard cutter was locking through when a number of people aboard took notice of a long ore boat locking through beside them.
[1:33:50 – 1:34:07] Erik: The huge vessel, like the Mackinac, had been down bond on Lake Superior, and its crewmen were probably enjoying one of those pleasant summer days when the lake stretches up before you in a beautiful expanse of blue, and you just know why you’ve chosen to make your living on the water.
[1:34:07 – 1:34:09] Erik: The ship was the Arthur M. Anderson.