273: Morrell 1: I Could Hear Tearing Metal

Episode Transcript

[0:00:01 – 0:00:11] Adam: Dennis Hale pulled his car into the Bethlehem Steel Plant just in time to see the Daniel J. Murrell reaching the Buffalo Breakwater on Lake Erie, a short distance from the plant’s Lackawanna loading dock.
[0:00:12 – 0:00:16] Adam: It was 11 in the evening of November 26, 1966.
[0:00:17 – 0:00:22] Adam: Hale, a 26-year-old watchman on the bulk carrier, had missed the boat, quite literally.
[0:00:23 – 0:00:26] Adam: On other occasions, but never with so much riding on it.
[0:00:27 – 0:00:36] Adam: If he failed to make this last trip of the season, he would be forfeiting his annual bonus, vacation pay, and extended vacation pay, adding up to a loss of $6,000 to $7,000.
[0:00:39 – 0:00:45] Adam: Seeing the boat’s lights in their near distance only added to Hale’s growing frustrations over recent developments on the Morrell.
[0:00:45 – 0:00:51] Adam: He had not been home for Thanksgiving because he was working on what was scheduled to be the Morrell’s last trip of the season.
[0:00:52 – 0:00:56] Adam: He could have accepted this as part of the downside of working on the lakes late in the season.
[0:00:57 – 0:01:10] Adam: But when the Morrell was sailing on the return trip to Lackawanna, New York, a port near Buffalo, the boat’s master, Captain Arthur Crowley, learned that the Morrell would be required to return to Taconite Harbor, Minnesota, for yet another load.
[0:01:12 – 0:01:15] Adam: The Bethlehem Steel freighter slated for the trip had engine problems.
[0:01:16 – 0:01:24] Adam: The Morrell, along with her sister’s ship, the Edward Y. Townsend, would be substituting for the stricken vessel.
[0:01:25 – 0:01:29] Adam: The additional voyage would be the Morrell’s 34th run of the shipping season.
[0:01:30 – 0:01:34] Adam: There is no reason other than carelessness and bad timing for Hale’s not being at the boat.
[0:01:35 – 0:01:38] Adam: When the Morrell had arrived at Lackawanna, she could not immediately unload.
[0:01:39 – 0:01:41] Adam: Two freighters were ahead of her at the dock.
[0:01:41 – 0:01:44] Adam: Hale viewed this inconvenience as an unexpected opportunity.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:51] Adam: His Ashtabula, Ohio home was only three hours away, and since it took nearly eight hours to unload the average freighter,
[0:01:51 – 0:02:00] Adam: He estimated that he could drive home, see his wife, and spend the night in his own bed, and return to Lackawanna in plenty of time to be back aboard the Morrell before the ship sailed for Minnesota.
[0:02:02 – 0:02:05] Adam: Hale kept his car at the Bethlehem plant for occasions like this.
[0:02:06 – 0:02:09] Adam: Hale left as soon as he found someone to cover his watch duty.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:13] Adam: John Groh, a 21-year-old deck watch on the Morrell, hitched a ride with him.
[0:02:13 – 0:02:19] Adam: Groh resided in Erie, Pennsylvania, which was not out of the way, and Hale dropped him off before driving on to Ashtabula.
[0:02:22 – 0:02:28] Adam: Hale, it turned out, miscalculated how long it would take to unload the boats, and Captain Crawley’s determination to leave the docks as soon as possible.
[0:02:29 – 0:02:35] Adam: The Lackawanna-Taconite trip was a long but familiar haul, one that the crew and the morale had taken on many occasions.
[0:02:36 – 0:02:39] Adam: This one promised to be a little rougher than most.
[0:02:40 – 0:02:43] Adam: Weather forecasts called for stormy weather on Lake Erie.
[0:02:44 – 0:02:47] Adam: and Captain Crawley ordered water added to the Morrell’s ballast tanks.
[0:02:47 – 0:02:52] Adam: The extra weight would allow the Morrell to ride lower in the water, giving her better stability.
[0:02:54 – 0:03:00] Adam: The smallest and shallowest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie was notorious for the ferocity of its late autumn storms.
[0:03:01 – 0:03:05] Adam: As soon as they knew they were stranded, Hale and Groh visited the Coast Guard station and radioed Crawley.
[0:03:06 – 0:03:09] Adam: With any luck, they could find a way to hook up with the boat on her first stop of the trip.
[0:03:11 – 0:03:18] Adam: Hale told the captain that his car had broken down on the way to Lackawanna, a transparently bad excuse that Crawley probably saw through.
[0:03:19 – 0:03:23] Adam: Nevertheless, Crawley had a little choice but to accommodate the two tardy crewmen.
[0:03:24 – 0:03:27] Adam: Already shorthanded in his crew, Crawley wanted the two on board.
[0:03:27 – 0:03:33] Adam: The morale, he told them, would be taking on a load of coal the next day at Mullendock, near Windsor, Ontario.
[0:03:34 – 0:03:36] Adam: Hale and Groh could rejoin the crew at that time.
[0:03:37 – 0:03:39] Adam: Hale assured him that they would be there.
[0:04:16 – 0:04:17] Erik: Get the net.
[0:04:18 – 0:04:19] Erik: It’s tumble home.
[0:04:20 – 0:04:21] Erik: My name’s Eric.
[0:04:22 – 0:04:23] Erik: We’re in the shed.
[0:04:25 – 0:04:28] Erik: Maybe one last time, but for now we are here.
[0:04:28 – 0:04:32] Erik: And my name, as I’ve already said, is Eric joint is always by Eric.
[0:04:34 – 0:04:38] Erik: My fine friend, who is the best at throwing the lifesaver?
[0:04:39 – 0:04:40] Erik: Ahoy, matey.
[0:04:40 – 0:04:41] Erik: Adam, hello.
[0:04:43 – 0:04:44] Erik: I’ll throw the round one to you.
[0:04:45 – 0:04:46] Erik: The round one?
[0:04:47 – 0:04:48] Erik: What other kinds are there?
[0:04:48 – 0:04:49] Adam: There’s the log.
[0:04:50 – 0:04:51] Adam: The Baywatch log?
[0:04:51 – 0:04:52] Adam: The torpedo?
[0:04:52 – 0:04:53] Adam: The Hasselbeck?
[0:04:53 – 0:04:54] Adam: Hasselbeck?
[0:04:54 – 0:04:55] Adam: There’s one that looks like a big alligator.
[0:04:55 – 0:04:56] Erik: Hasselhoff?
[0:04:57 – 0:04:57] Erik: Red alligator?
[0:04:57 – 0:04:59] Adam: Yeah, and then get the big alligator.
[0:04:59 – 0:05:01] Adam: You got one that looks just like a hammer.
[0:05:02 – 0:05:03] Adam: Is there one that looks like a hammer?
[0:05:04 – 0:05:05] Adam: You can throw that one really far.
[0:05:06 – 0:05:08] Adam: Is that just to get the rope out there, though?
[0:05:08 – 0:05:11] Adam: I prefer the spear as well, but that one doesn’t float.
[0:05:12 – 0:05:13] Adam: That one will take you down.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:14] Adam: Yeah.
[0:05:14 – 0:05:15] Adam: That’s for your enemies.
[0:05:16 – 0:05:16] Erik: Sure.
[0:05:17 – 0:05:18] Erik: You always got to have one of those.
[0:05:18 – 0:05:19] Erik: One for friends.
[0:05:19 – 0:05:20] Adam: Or pirates.
[0:05:20 – 0:05:21] Adam: One for enemies.
[0:05:21 – 0:05:22] Adam: That’s right.
[0:05:22 – 0:05:23] Adam: Welcome to the shed.
[0:05:23 – 0:05:27] Adam: It is pretty chilly out here, and it is quite late.
[0:05:28 – 0:05:29] Adam: And this is Tumboam.
[0:05:30 – 0:05:30] Adam: After dark.
[0:05:31 – 0:05:31] Adam: Oh, okay.
[0:05:32 – 0:05:57] Adam: my no it’s always after dark at this point but i don’t think this is any uh kind of a record breaking record in terms of temperatures in the shed we’ve been in here in colder temps no and i you know i just barely got out here before you and flip the heaters on so uh the heater is on now but it’s gonna take a while for it to have any effect on us yeah so i’m pretty bundled up and i’m pretty comfortable
[0:05:57 – 0:05:58] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:58 – 0:05:59] Erik: Tis the season.
[0:05:59 – 0:06:00] Erik: I am layered up.
[0:06:00 – 0:06:01] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:06:01 – 0:06:03] Adam: I’m doing a lot better than…
[0:06:04 – 0:06:07] Adam: It’s not like I’m on a raft floating around on Lake Huron without any pants.
[0:06:08 – 0:06:09] Adam: I mean… Where’d the pants go?
[0:06:10 – 0:06:11] Adam: You’re about to find out, buddy.
[0:06:11 – 0:06:12] Adam: Man.
[0:06:13 – 0:06:15] Erik: Where’d the pants go?
[0:06:15 – 0:06:16] Adam: That’s the name of this episode.
[0:06:16 – 0:06:16] Adam: Yes.
[0:06:17 – 0:06:18] Adam: Daniel J. Morrell won.
[0:06:19 – 0:06:20] Adam: Where’s the pants go?
[0:06:21 – 0:06:22] Erik: Hot leading contender.
[0:06:22 – 0:06:23] Adam: Aye.
[0:06:23 – 0:06:24] Adam: We’re writing them down.
[0:06:25 – 0:06:26] Adam: Stacking them up, Eric.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:29] Adam: Yeah.
[0:06:30 – 0:06:35] Adam: Got to get in these art supplies because I am thirsty and I got a little bit of reading ahead of me tonight.
[0:06:35 – 0:06:37] Adam: So we’re going right to the art supplies.
[0:06:37 – 0:06:42] Erik: Yeah, we didn’t even have our usual pre-record banter back and forth.
[0:06:42 – 0:06:45] Erik: A little, you know, 10, 20 minute sit session.
[0:06:46 – 0:06:48] Adam: Yeah, we didn’t have the pre-show at all.
[0:06:48 – 0:06:49] Adam: No pre-show.
[0:06:49 – 0:06:54] Adam: Didn’t tailgate this episode, not even for three extra minutes before Eric got here.
[0:06:54 – 0:06:55] Adam: I’m like, just hit record.
[0:06:55 – 0:06:56] Erik: I’m thirsty.
[0:06:56 – 0:06:59] Adam: I got a cold open and then I’m thirsty.
[0:07:00 – 0:07:03] Adam: So I did that whole cold open with no beer in me.
[0:07:03 – 0:07:05] Erik: Wow, that might be a first.
[0:07:05 – 0:07:07] Adam: So if you’re wondering why my voice sounds like that.
[0:07:08 – 0:07:08] Erik: Yeah.
[0:07:09 – 0:07:11] Adam: Why did a frog in a tin can read the cold open?
[0:07:11 – 0:07:12] Adam: Well, that’s what happened there.
[0:07:13 – 0:07:15] Erik: Well, that’s what Adam sounds like sober.
[0:07:16 – 0:07:21] Adam: Well, I mean, I did have one beer while we were checking the whitefish nets, but that was like four hours ago.
[0:07:21 – 0:07:21] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:07:21 – 0:07:23] Erik: That’s long gone out of your system.
[0:07:23 – 0:07:27] Erik: The liver of your capacity chewed through death.
[0:07:27 – 0:07:27] Adam: I had a huge dinner.
[0:07:28 – 0:07:29] Adam: I drank another bottle of water in there.
[0:07:30 – 0:07:32] Adam: I’m well hydrated and well fed.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:34] Adam: We did check the nets.
[0:07:36 – 0:07:42] Adam: And I’ll tell you a little bit about the Nets before we get back to the disaster that was the Daniel J. Murrell in 1966.
[0:07:43 – 0:07:44] Adam: It’s shipwreck season, baby.
[0:07:45 – 0:07:49] Adam: We’re going from our favorite boats to a big broken boat.
[0:07:49 – 0:07:50] Adam: Nice.
[0:07:50 – 0:07:51] Adam: Yeah.
[0:07:51 – 0:07:52] Adam: Tis the season again.
[0:07:52 – 0:08:16] Adam: and uh yeah this wreck so this episode’s coming out on november 24th the wreck of the morel occurred on november 26th and we just had some of the craziest like uh wind hitting the north shore and big waves that i have ever seen out of the south yeah big ones they said uh i heard somebody say that there’s 15 foot waves crashing over artist point is this true
[0:08:16 – 0:08:18] Erik: I haven’t really been in town recently.
[0:08:19 – 0:08:19] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:08:19 – 0:08:20] Adam: That’s true.
[0:08:20 – 0:08:24] Erik: I was on the other side of the lake this last week.
[0:08:24 – 0:08:25] Adam: Way over there.
[0:08:26 – 0:08:27] Adam: The other side.
[0:08:27 – 0:08:27] Erik: Yeah.
[0:08:27 – 0:08:31] Adam: We got ourselves a Frost River bag from Duluth.
[0:08:31 – 0:08:33] Adam: That’s halfway between where you and I were.
[0:08:33 – 0:08:36] Adam: And the Twin Ports, it’s a…
[0:08:38 – 0:08:39] Adam: Oh, it says reliable.
[0:08:39 – 0:08:41] Adam: I thought it said durable.
[0:08:41 – 0:08:43] Adam: I’m sure you could say durable, too.
[0:08:44 – 0:08:46] Adam: Durable and reliable Frost Rivers.
[0:08:47 – 0:08:49] Adam: And this one came in.
[0:08:49 – 0:08:50] Adam: It’s just on the whiteboard.
[0:08:50 – 0:08:53] Adam: It’s Frost River Bag, August 31st.
[0:08:53 – 0:08:57] Adam: So we’re closing out the August supply here, and we’re moving on to the next column.
[0:09:00 – 0:09:00] Adam: We did it.
[0:09:01 – 0:09:02] Adam: Congratulations.
[0:09:03 – 0:09:04] Erik: You did it.
[0:09:07 – 0:09:15] Adam: I was listening to the first Whitefish episode, 169, and at one point I did play the Bezos song, and they’re just on the Vibes radio.
[0:09:15 – 0:09:15] Erik: Oh.
[0:09:16 – 0:09:18] Erik: Congratulations!
[0:09:18 – 0:09:19] Adam: Wow.
[0:09:21 – 0:09:24] Adam: You can’t make this up, Eric.
[0:09:25 – 0:09:26] Adam: You just can’t make it up.
[0:09:26 – 0:09:27] Adam: This is a tap.
[0:09:27 – 0:09:31] Adam: It’s a sixer of tap shack Caribbean style lager.
[0:09:31 – 0:09:32] Erik: Caribbean?
[0:09:32 – 0:09:33] Adam: Caribbean.
[0:09:33 – 0:09:34] Adam: That’s how you say it.
[0:09:34 – 0:09:35] Adam: From Earth Rider Brewing.
[0:09:35 – 0:09:37] Adam: This one’s new to the show.
[0:09:37 – 0:09:37] Adam: I think it is.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:38] Adam: 5%.
[0:09:38 – 0:09:40] Adam: I got a whole sixer here.
[0:09:40 – 0:09:42] Erik: Never seen one of those before in my life.
[0:09:43 – 0:09:45] Adam: IBU-16, have you, or are you being silly?
[0:09:45 – 0:09:46] Erik: No, I haven’t.
[0:09:46 – 0:09:47] Adam: I’ve never seen this.
[0:09:47 – 0:09:48] Adam: I haven’t.
[0:09:48 – 0:09:49] Adam: There’s a float plane.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:52] Adam: Looks like a Cessna 172 coming in hot.
[0:09:53 – 0:09:55] Adam: He’s going to land right on these two people on SUPs.
[0:09:56 – 0:09:59] Erik: Yeah, those SUPs are going to get slaughtered by that float plane.
[0:09:59 – 0:09:59] Adam: Watch out.
[0:09:59 – 0:10:00] Adam: You’re on the runaway.
[0:10:01 – 0:10:02] Erik: He’s buzzing the beach shack.
[0:10:05 – 0:10:08] Adam: Got a beach picnic going on here with some comfortable chairs.
[0:10:09 – 0:10:10] Adam: Popping right into these.
[0:10:10 – 0:10:12] Adam: I didn’t see a note, but I’m going to go back in.
[0:10:12 – 0:10:13] Erik: It’s a good color.
[0:10:13 – 0:10:13] Erik: I like that.
[0:10:14 – 0:10:14] Erik: What do you call that?
[0:10:14 – 0:10:16] Erik: Seafoam green?
[0:10:16 – 0:10:19] Erik: Seafoam blue?
[0:10:19 – 0:10:20] Erik: It’s kind of in between.
[0:10:21 – 0:10:22] Adam: It’s sea foam, though.
[0:10:22 – 0:10:23] Adam: You call it cool breeze.
[0:10:23 – 0:10:24] Adam: Cool waters.
[0:10:24 – 0:10:25] Adam: Cool waters.
[0:10:25 – 0:10:26] Adam: That’s what it was.
[0:10:26 – 0:10:28] Erik: It is like a light, cool water.
[0:10:28 – 0:10:31] Adam: This looks like the boat Cool Waters from last week.
[0:10:31 – 0:10:33] Erik: Just a little lighter, but very close.
[0:10:34 – 0:10:35] Adam: It’s pretty cold out here.
[0:10:36 – 0:10:41] Adam: These were in the fridge, which was plugged in, but also I’m sure not running.
[0:10:41 – 0:10:43] Erik: I love the speed lines behind the SUP paddlers.
[0:10:43 – 0:10:44] Adam: They are cruising.
[0:10:44 – 0:10:45] Adam: I didn’t notice how fast they’re going.
[0:10:46 – 0:10:49] Erik: Going about as fast as that float plane is coming in.
[0:10:50 – 0:10:54] Adam: So this one’s got no note whatsoever that I can see.
[0:10:54 – 0:10:55] Erik: Was there anything on the bottom of the box?
[0:10:56 – 0:10:56] Erik: I don’t think so.
[0:10:56 – 0:10:59] Adam: There’s no indication of who dropped these off.
[0:11:00 – 0:11:03] Adam: But thank you to whoever you were.
[0:11:03 – 0:11:05] Adam: Uncredited Earth Riders.
[0:11:06 – 0:11:13] Erik: Is this like the cranes are flying situation where the note is under the little container of nuts?
[0:11:14 – 0:11:16] Erik: This is a deep, deep cut.
[0:11:16 – 0:11:18] Erik: I just watched the movie The Cranes Are Flying.
[0:11:18 – 0:11:20] Adam: Wow, I am just blinking over here.
[0:11:20 – 0:11:21] Adam: I got nothing.
[0:11:22 – 0:11:26] Erik: 1950s Soviet era World War II love story.
[0:11:27 – 0:11:29] Adam: Is it really from the 50s or did it just come out?
[0:11:30 – 0:11:31] Erik: No, it is from 1958.
[0:11:31 – 0:11:32] Erik: It’s excellent.
[0:11:33 – 0:11:34] Erik: I cried.
[0:11:34 – 0:11:35] Adam: In color?
[0:11:35 – 0:11:36] Erik: No, black and white.
[0:11:36 – 0:11:37] Adam: Beautiful.
[0:11:37 – 0:11:55] Erik: In Russian with subtitles, but the man that goes away to war hides a little note in a gift to his sweetie, and it’s a stuffed squirrel, and he’s carrying a basket of nuts, and he hides the note under the nuts in the basket, and she doesn’t find it for…
[0:11:56 – 0:11:57] Erik: A little too long.
[0:11:57 – 0:11:58] Erik: Oh, I would cry then, yeah.
[0:11:58 – 0:11:59] Erik: No spoilers.
[0:11:59 – 0:12:02] Erik: I won’t say if she finds the note or not, but… Eat the nuts.
[0:12:03 – 0:12:03] Adam: Yeah.
[0:12:03 – 0:12:07] Erik: I mean, also, maybe hide the note in a more plain spot, buddy.
[0:12:08 – 0:12:10] Adam: Maybe he just wanted to make sure that only she would find it.
[0:12:11 – 0:12:13] Erik: Well, she definitely was not the one that found it.
[0:12:13 – 0:12:14] Erik: I said too much!
[0:12:17 – 0:12:18] Adam: No.
[0:12:19 – 0:12:19] Erik: Boris.
[0:12:19 – 0:12:20] Erik: I’m crying.
[0:12:20 – 0:12:24] Erik: At least we have our pants.
[0:12:25 – 0:12:25] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:25 – 0:12:26] Adam: At least we have our pants.
[0:12:26 – 0:12:29] Adam: Thank you to the mystery donor of tonight’s.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:30] Adam: I’m going to crack these.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:33] Adam: I am 30% chance that this one might explode.
[0:12:34 – 0:12:36] Erik: Don’t hold it over any electronics.
[0:12:36 – 0:12:37] Erik: I think we’re good.
[0:12:37 – 0:12:38] Adam: All right.
[0:12:38 – 0:12:39] Adam: The mini fridge did its job.
[0:12:39 – 0:12:40] Adam: Cheers.
[0:12:41 – 0:12:41] Adam: To you, sir.
[0:12:45 – 0:12:46] Adam: Woo, that’s cold.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:48] Adam: That one’s wetting the whistle.
[0:12:49 – 0:12:53] Erik: I feel like a sup paddler cruising right over those waves.
[0:12:53 – 0:12:54] Erik: They’re not breaking.
[0:12:54 – 0:12:58] Erik: It’s just a little lollygagger paddle out there, just a bob session.
[0:12:58 – 0:12:59] Erik: It’s going.
[0:12:59 – 0:13:00] Erik: It’s going with the flow.
[0:13:00 – 0:13:01] Erik: Going with the flow.
[0:13:02 – 0:13:06] Erik: We got low-flying float planes bringing in supplies.
[0:13:06 – 0:13:13] Erik: I’m sure they got a crate of rum in there, a bunch of bottles nestled into some old little bits of straw and whatnot.
[0:13:13 – 0:13:15] Adam: Both the pontoons are full of rum.
[0:13:15 – 0:13:16] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:13:16 – 0:13:18] Erik: That’s where the rum’s at.
[0:13:18 – 0:13:20] Adam: That’s where the term rum runner comes from.
[0:13:21 – 0:13:25] Adam: Anybody that is in the Caribbean knows that what we’re saying is true.
[0:13:25 – 0:13:26] Adam: They’re going to the tap shack.
[0:13:27 – 0:13:27] Erik: Yeah.
[0:13:28 – 0:13:28] Erik: Caribbean.
[0:13:28 – 0:13:30] Adam: Caribbean tap shacks.
[0:13:33 – 0:13:35] Adam: Netting’s been pretty good, Eric.
[0:13:35 – 0:13:35] Adam: Yeah.
[0:13:35 – 0:13:36] Erik: You going to get out there with us?
[0:13:37 – 0:13:37] Erik: No.
[0:13:37 – 0:13:41] Erik: Every time you send me pictures, I’m just like, my God, that’s way too many whitefish.
[0:13:41 – 0:13:42] Adam: This is ridiculous.
[0:13:42 – 0:13:42] Adam: There’s a tub.
[0:13:43 – 0:13:45] Adam: True story, listeners and friends.
[0:13:45 – 0:13:49] Adam: There’s a tub of whitefish just sitting over by Arrow.
[0:13:50 – 0:13:59] Adam: There’s a disc golf basket over there next to the Mintoo, and then there’s just a full tub of whitefish over there that I am going to clean after we record this episode tonight.
[0:13:59 – 0:14:00] Erik: You were cleaning those out here?
[0:14:01 – 0:14:05] Adam: I’m not going to clean them in the house.
[0:14:05 – 0:14:08] Adam: I have been cleaning them mostly at the campground.
[0:14:08 – 0:14:09] Erik: That’s a good place to do it.
[0:14:09 – 0:14:15] Erik: Whitefish meat is delicious, but to get to it is a slimy, scaly, cold ordeal.
[0:14:15 – 0:14:17] Adam: It’s really the eggs that get you.
[0:14:18 – 0:14:19] Adam: So many eggs.
[0:14:19 – 0:14:20] Adam: Oh, God, this time of year?
[0:14:20 – 0:14:21] Adam: I mean, that’s the deal.
[0:14:22 – 0:14:30] Adam: They’re swimming in the shallows doing the spawning run right now, and they are full of eggs, most of them at least.
[0:14:30 – 0:14:31] Adam: It’s a mess.
[0:14:32 – 0:14:36] Adam: So, yeah, I generally bring a board and I always have my fillet knife and everything with me.
[0:14:37 – 0:14:43] Adam: And I generally have just been, like, filleting them all up on the picnic table at the campground on Devil’s Track.
[0:14:44 – 0:14:53] Adam: And then just throwing fillets in, like, a Ziploc bag and then, like, kind of just cleaning them up when I get home, which is definitely just in the indoor sink kind of work.
[0:14:53 – 0:14:54] Adam: Yeah.
[0:14:54 – 0:14:58] Adam: But, yeah, like, the full-on filleting, like, process is, like, quite messy.
[0:14:58 – 0:14:58] Adam: Yeah.
[0:14:58 – 0:14:59] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:14:59 – 0:15:10] Adam: And so I really didn’t want to do it in the house, and it was dark by the time I got home, so I wasn’t just going to sit down by the woodshed and do it, although there’s a hose down there, or a spigot at least.
[0:15:10 – 0:15:12] Erik: A little running water goes a long way.
[0:15:12 – 0:15:22] Adam: Some running water would be nice, but I’m just going to capture the whole mess into that tub and then throw it back in the back of the truck and dispose of it in the ditch somewhere tomorrow.
[0:15:23 – 0:15:24] Erik: And burn it with fire?
[0:15:25 – 0:15:27] Adam: No, I need the tub for checking the nets tomorrow.
[0:15:28 – 0:15:28] Adam: Oh, sure.
[0:15:28 – 0:15:29] Adam: The nets are still in.
[0:15:30 – 0:15:31] Adam: Yeah.
[0:15:31 – 0:15:32] Adam: We’re slamming them, though.
[0:15:33 – 0:15:35] Adam: I’ll give you a brief rundown if you’re interested.
[0:15:36 – 0:15:38] Adam: You’re not going to really come out and join us for one night?
[0:15:39 – 0:15:40] Adam: You don’t have to do anything.
[0:15:40 – 0:15:42] Adam: You can just come hang out.
[0:15:42 – 0:15:44] Erik: I’ve been there, done that.
[0:15:47 – 0:15:59] Adam: Like I said earlier, I was listening to the, I think it’s 169, the original Whitefish episode, and I’m in their second day field audio.
[0:15:59 – 0:16:00] Adam: This is my new favorite hobby.
[0:16:01 – 0:16:02] Adam: We’re both buying new nets.
[0:16:02 – 0:16:03] Adam: We’re going every year.
[0:16:03 – 0:16:05] Adam: I’m going to get 100 every year.
[0:16:06 – 0:16:34] Adam: yeah then we didn’t go uh one year due to injury and another year due to ineptitude and then uh all of a sudden now it’s 2024 and it’s like we’re getting back at it but um you have the world’s finest pair of scummer mitts i’ve still got my original scummer gloves that i had in 2021 nice so yeah we were out there in early november in 2021 and now it’s the 20th today it’s a late late season
[0:16:34 – 0:16:42] Adam: Yeah, and the water temps are still like in the 42, 43, and then it rained a bunch yesterday, which I think actually warmed the lake up a little.
[0:16:43 – 0:16:44] Erik: My God, it rained.
[0:16:45 – 0:16:48] Adam: It rained a lot, and we actually have two nets out.
[0:16:48 – 0:16:49] Adam: We had two nets out.
[0:16:50 – 0:17:01] Adam: Josh and I have the main net out, and then Ben and Christine, I work with Ben at the co-op, and they had a net, and they live nearby there.
[0:17:01 – 0:17:05] Adam: And so they had their – we all put both these nets out on Friday.
[0:17:06 – 0:17:08] Adam: So we had a double net set, which was killer.
[0:17:09 – 0:17:11] Adam: But, yeah, we were just like –
[0:17:13 – 0:17:18] Adam: I think the least we’ve gotten in a day is like 13 whitefish keepers.
[0:17:18 – 0:17:22] Erik: It seems way more than when we were doing it a few years back when I was out there with you.
[0:17:22 – 0:17:23] Erik: I remember it was like maybe five, six, seven.
[0:17:23 – 0:17:31] Adam: So, yeah, I was listening back, and then we were out there early November, but I think the same distance from ice, if that makes sense.
[0:17:31 – 0:17:36] Adam: And, yeah, we got like four the first day, four the second day, and we were just like, oh, my God, this is amazing.
[0:17:37 – 0:17:37] Erik: Yeah.
[0:17:37 – 0:17:59] Adam: get out there now and we’re just doing the math i think we’re getting like eight fish per net per pole right now is our averaging um we’re no no joke we’re at i just added them up we have so we put them in friday we checked them saturday sunday monday tuesday was a hurricane uh forced wind and not safe so we did not check them tuesday so then we checked them wednesday
[0:18:00 – 0:18:12] Adam: Four pulls of the nets, and we have 69 whitefish, one huge 33, 34-inch pike, and then we’ve gotten two suckers this year.
[0:18:12 – 0:18:13] Adam: Oh, wow.
[0:18:13 – 0:18:16] Adam: Two suckers in there this year, and big suckers.
[0:18:17 – 0:18:18] Erik: Were they released successfully, or…?
[0:18:19 – 0:18:38] Adam: um no um josh is like turning him into dog food sure so yeah he’s been uh i think he’s still gonna plan smoking them and then like grinding them up for old maya maya still around huh maya actually made an appearance uh sunday i want to say dang um it’s a dog like 27 at this point
[0:18:39 – 0:18:40] Adam: Yeah, at least.
[0:18:41 – 0:18:44] Adam: That’s in human years, so he has figured it out.
[0:18:44 – 0:18:46] Adam: Yeah, we’re just slamming them.
[0:18:46 – 0:18:48] Adam: And there’s some really big ones.
[0:18:48 – 0:18:53] Adam: I think the biggest one we’ve gotten is like 24, maybe, or 23, a couple of those size.
[0:18:54 – 0:18:58] Adam: And they have been, like, that’s, I’d say, bigger than anything we saw in 2021.
[0:18:58 – 0:18:58] Adam: Yeah.
[0:19:00 – 0:19:04] Adam: I just am going to assume it’s because we’re in here later in November and we just haven’t gotten ice yet.
[0:19:04 – 0:19:10] Adam: There’s got to be some factor in the light and the temperature of the water because it just seems like there’s way more big ones in there.
[0:19:10 – 0:19:14] Adam: For instance, today, Ben and Christine are pulling their net.
[0:19:15 – 0:19:16] Adam: For the season?
[0:19:16 – 0:19:20] Adam: Just for tonight at least because they’re heading out of town or something soon.
[0:19:21 – 0:19:22] Adam: So they’re just like, we’ve got plenty.
[0:19:22 – 0:19:23] Adam: We’re pulling our net tonight.
[0:19:23 – 0:19:25] Adam: And then Josh and I left ours in.
[0:19:26 – 0:19:36] Adam: So we like checked their net first and like went down the net, pulled out whatever, like a dozen out of that net tonight, including the big sucker, which is just a beautiful specimen.
[0:19:37 – 0:19:46] Adam: And then we like went, so we started picking up the anchor and going back down and like putting the net into the bin, going back to where the flag is, like where we had begun.
[0:19:47 – 0:19:49] Adam: We get back to where the flag is and there’s another whitefish in there.
[0:19:50 – 0:20:13] Adam: like it swam in there in the like five minutes we were checking and pulling the net wow so it’s like well i mean how how many whitefish are out there i mean enough that they enough that there’s no limit yeah yeah as many as you can enough that there’s no limit and the the form of catching them is literally just a net in the water every time we go out there i’m like this doesn’t feel like this should be legal
[0:20:14 – 0:20:37] Adam: yeah right i cannot believe this is actually legal that we’re doing this like i’m just i may i’m gonna still ice fish obviously and i’m still gonna go out you know slip up for walleyes every once in a while but like literally could just fish for two weeks doing this and you’d have all the fish you would ever need yeah it’s incredible i mean people pay top dollar for the white fish it’s uh and it’s like the best fish that you can get that’s the thing like
[0:20:38 – 0:20:50] Adam: I prefer this to, although they’re a little bonier on the cleaning, once you get the hang of it, I prefer the whitefish to walleye, and I would guarantee nine out of ten of our listeners would prefer a walleye to the whitefish if you asked them what they’d rather catch.
[0:20:51 – 0:20:54] Erik: Blind taste tests would be the true determination.
[0:20:55 – 0:21:06] Erik: I mean, yeah, sure, you ask most people, I’m sure they would all say a walleye, but if you were to sit them down and actually feed them a piece of grilled fish, I don’t know.
[0:21:06 – 0:21:08] Adam: I pre-preferred them to anything.
[0:21:08 – 0:21:11] Erik: Maybe you’d be close to a toss-up.
[0:21:12 – 0:21:14] Adam: Anyway, they’re damn good, and you can just get as many of them as you want.
[0:21:14 – 0:21:16] Adam: It’s incredible.
[0:21:16 – 0:21:16] Adam: Yeah?
[0:21:16 – 0:21:20] Adam: I mean, the last day, I just caught more keeper fish than I have all year.
[0:21:21 – 0:21:27] Adam: I mean, I haven’t been fishing that much this year, but still, it’s an alarming amount of keeper fish coming in.
[0:21:27 – 0:21:28] Adam: So, yeah, I got a whole bin over there.
[0:21:29 – 0:21:32] Adam: Arrow the Husky is probably guarding them for us, and…
[0:21:32 – 0:21:55] Adam: thank god i’m not really exactly sure what the operation is going to be over there but like by the time we did the whole thing tonight it was like dark and i was just like i gotta get home and get to get home and get home for dinner and i don’t i’ll just have to clean these later like after podcasting so i was up at 5 a.m this will be a long one yeah it’s a big day eric it’s a big day these beers are incredible though this is just what i needed
[0:21:57 – 0:21:58] Erik: Yeah, they’re pretty good.
[0:21:58 – 0:22:01] Erik: Yeah, I’m happy to hear the whitefish netting has been successful.
[0:22:01 – 0:22:03] Erik: Stock the larder.
[0:22:03 – 0:22:04] Erik: I mean, come on.
[0:22:05 – 0:22:06] Erik: It is the season.
[0:22:06 – 0:22:07] Erik: It’s going to be a long…
[0:22:07 – 0:22:09] Erik: I mean, the days are still somehow getting shorter.
[0:22:09 – 0:22:10] Adam: Yeah, I know.
[0:22:10 – 0:22:18] Adam: Every day you go out there and it’s like, I guess it’s like leaving work as early as possible to get up there with enough daylight to get the net.
[0:22:18 – 0:22:23] Adam: Now we’re down to one net and that’ll cut down on the amount of fish we got to deal with.
[0:22:24 – 0:22:24] Adam: That’s the thing.
[0:22:24 – 0:22:26] Adam: All of a sudden it’s just like, man, I got to deal with these fish.
[0:22:26 – 0:22:27] Adam: It’s a blessing.
[0:22:28 – 0:22:31] Adam: I should be honored to be cleaning these fish tonight.
[0:22:31 – 0:22:35] Adam: And it’s going to provide a lot of, like, excellent high-quality protein for our family.
[0:22:35 – 0:22:38] Adam: But it does, like, it’s work, man.
[0:22:38 – 0:22:39] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:22:39 – 0:22:39] Adam: It’s not just fishing.
[0:22:39 – 0:22:40] Adam: That’s the thing.
[0:22:40 – 0:22:43] Adam: Like, it’s cool as hell, and I love it.
[0:22:43 – 0:22:45] Adam: But, like, it is because of the volume you’re talking.
[0:22:45 – 0:22:45] Adam: It’s, like, work.
[0:22:46 – 0:22:46] Erik: Yeah.
[0:22:47 – 0:22:47] Erik: Yeah.
[0:22:47 – 0:22:50] Erik: I mean, that’s again, maybe we will, maybe we won’t.
[0:22:50 – 0:22:55] Erik: I think we’re leaning towards doing a light alone retrospective.
[0:22:56 – 0:22:56] Erik: Oh, heck yeah.
[0:22:56 – 0:23:04] Erik: And that’s always one of the biggest like, well, I got all this meat, but now I got the work ahead of me to process it, preserve it.
[0:23:04 – 0:23:06] Erik: And you don’t have this problem.
[0:23:06 – 0:23:08] Erik: Keep it away from animals.
[0:23:08 – 0:23:15] Adam: Yeah, I got two things going for me this year that I didn’t have in 2021.
[0:23:16 – 0:23:19] Adam: That year I was trying to like pickle most of them.
[0:23:21 – 0:23:25] Adam: using Grandma’s pickle recipe that Brother Andrew eventually did send me.
[0:23:25 – 0:23:27] Adam: Thank you, Brother Andrew, and thank you, Grandma.
[0:23:28 – 0:23:33] Adam: But I just don’t care for pickled whitefish, I guess, or really the way I did it.
[0:23:33 – 0:23:37] Adam: I’ll just say the way I did it, it wasn’t like how Grandma usually made it or how Andrew makes it.
[0:23:37 – 0:23:40] Adam: So I may have not done the pickling properly.
[0:23:40 – 0:23:44] Adam: It was fine, but I wasn’t terribly impressed with it.
[0:23:44 – 0:23:48] Erik: Yeah, I mean, any kind of pickled fish, I’m not a huge fan of.
[0:23:48 – 0:23:51] Adam: And Josh is smoking most of our fish.
[0:23:51 – 0:23:55] Adam: He’s taking nine to my seven or whatever ratio.
[0:23:55 – 0:23:59] Adam: So most of them are going to the smoker, and then I have been just filleting mine.
[0:24:00 – 0:24:07] Adam: But we got ourselves one of them vacuum sealers now with the really heavy-duty plastic that’s super…
[0:24:08 – 0:24:33] Adam: durable in the freezer yeah and then uh we also have a reasonable size chest freezer now so i got like plenty of room so i mean i’m just stacking them stack them up and i’m just giving away fish so if you want any whitefish i know somebody can get you some you want some fillets eric a little white fished out after this season you like fish yeah i suppose yeah
[0:24:35 – 0:24:36] Adam: Hey, what do you want to do after work?
[0:24:36 – 0:24:38] Adam: You want to go fish?
[0:24:38 – 0:24:39] Adam: You want to eat fish?
[0:24:40 – 0:24:41] Erik: Touch fish?
[0:24:42 – 0:24:44] Erik: Well, that’s awesome.
[0:24:44 – 0:24:46] Erik: I wish I was a little bit more excited about stocking my…
[0:24:46 – 0:24:49] Erik: I don’t have a big chest freezer, so I don’t know.
[0:24:49 – 0:24:51] Erik: We’re really kind of limited on the room.
[0:24:51 – 0:24:53] Adam: That’s why I was trying to pick one last time.
[0:24:54 – 0:24:57] Adam: I’m excited to have all this fish in the freezer.
[0:24:57 – 0:24:58] Adam: It’s going to be awesome.
[0:24:58 – 0:25:01] Adam: I’m eating fish for every other meal right now.
[0:25:01 – 0:25:02] Adam: Huzzah, huzzah.
[0:25:02 – 0:25:03] Adam: Huzzah, huzzah.
[0:25:06 – 0:25:08] Erik: I was down in the land of Joe Pera last weekend.
[0:25:08 – 0:25:09] Adam: You were on the other side of the lake.
[0:25:10 – 0:25:13] Erik: Which is… Man, I wish if there…
[0:25:13 – 0:25:15] Erik: I mean, there’s just not enough time.
[0:25:15 – 0:25:16] Erik: Not enough time in a life.
[0:25:17 – 0:25:23] Erik: I think when I was down there, I was like, I would love to come down here with Adam because it’s just festooned with…
[0:25:24 – 0:25:48] Erik: shipwreck like history museums we were down in the uh uh painted rocks the national lake shore scenic shoreline yeah which is just incredible in its own right but like we were there like very off season we didn’t get on any boats the boats you got to be a professional coast guard uh cutter
[0:25:48 – 0:25:54] Erik: Yeah, professional Coast Guard cutter or hauling iron to be out on the big lake this time of year.
[0:25:54 – 0:25:56] Erik: There’s no tour boats out.
[0:25:56 – 0:25:59] Erik: They’re all vacuum sealed and stored for the year.
[0:26:00 – 0:26:02] Adam: Yeah, very few pleasure craft.
[0:26:02 – 0:26:10] Erik: Yeah, but we were just like an hour and a half away from Whitefish Point and the pinch point of Whitefish Bay.
[0:26:10 – 0:26:11] Erik: Did you guys see the bell?
[0:26:12 – 0:26:14] Erik: No, we didn’t get all the way out there.
[0:26:14 – 0:26:16] Adam: Oh, missed opportunity.
[0:26:16 – 0:26:19] Erik: Yeah, well, I mean, there’s only so much driving you can do.
[0:26:19 – 0:26:23] Erik: It takes seven hours to get down to Marquette, Michigan from Grand Marais.
[0:26:23 – 0:26:24] Adam: That is a long run.
[0:26:24 – 0:26:26] Adam: There’s just no quick way about it.
[0:26:26 – 0:26:29] Erik: No, it’s like usually in any kind of a driving situation…
[0:26:30 – 0:26:34] Erik: Using Duluth is like, all right, we’re like halfway to the cities.
[0:26:34 – 0:26:38] Erik: We’re like four hours from some places in Wisconsin.
[0:26:38 – 0:26:42] Erik: It’s like you get to Duluth, you’re still like damn near five hours away from Marquette.
[0:26:42 – 0:26:43] Erik: It’s crazy.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:44] Adam: It is way over there.
[0:26:44 – 0:26:45] Erik: But it’s a beautiful drive.
[0:26:46 – 0:26:47] Erik: I mean, it’s just true.
[0:26:47 – 0:26:49] Erik: I mean, we should have thrown a pumpkin in the backseat.
[0:26:49 – 0:26:53] Erik: That’s the fall drive scene from Joe Barrett is what it looks like.
[0:26:55 – 0:27:08] Erik: But I had been to Marquette before, but my knowledge of Jopera on that first trip was, I don’t even know if it existed, but this time I was noticing all the landmarks, the Upper Ordoch, the Lower Ordoch.
[0:27:08 – 0:27:09] Erik: Yes.
[0:27:09 – 0:27:10] Erik: The Cove.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:12] Erik: The Higgins Bingo Supplies.
[0:27:13 – 0:27:13] Erik: Yes.
[0:27:13 – 0:27:15] Erik: Did you go to the grocery store?
[0:27:16 – 0:27:18] Erik: We did not go to the grocery store, no.
[0:27:19 – 0:27:23] Erik: But we did go to the first, you know, when he teaches you about iron.
[0:27:24 – 0:27:25] Adam: Yeah, first episode.
[0:27:25 – 0:27:31] Erik: Yes, we did go to that out on Presque Isle Park.
[0:27:32 – 0:27:35] Erik: Basically, that whole episode is filmed on that little island.
[0:27:35 – 0:27:40] Erik: Well, it’s more of a peninsula, a very tight little point that’s barely a point, but still…
[0:27:41 – 0:28:05] Erik: between an island and a point and uh yeah you just come walking down to that beach and you’re just like oh damn yeah this is uh it’s kind of like a point one uh very iconic island can see very very easily why that uh that first episode was filmed where it was and why he went on pontificating about how he didn’t want to move to ontario did you find any cool rocks
[0:28:05 – 0:28:07] Erik: Oh, the rocks on there are insane.
[0:28:07 – 0:28:11] Erik: Like you could have just spent hours just hounding.
[0:28:11 – 0:28:11] Erik: Crazy.
[0:28:12 – 0:28:16] Erik: Like agates, just every other rock was like kind of a borderline agate.
[0:28:16 – 0:28:24] Erik: Otherwise, like these crazy like striation rocks that I have no idea what they mean.
[0:28:24 – 0:28:27] Erik: I’m sure if I rewatch that first episode…
[0:28:27 – 0:28:29] Adam: I might learn a thing or two, but…
[0:28:30 – 0:28:35] Adam: I’ve been having para on the mind, and then you started sending picks from down there.
[0:28:36 – 0:28:41] Adam: We talked about last week or two weeks ago, we’ve got to restart para again.
[0:28:41 – 0:28:43] Adam: It’s the perfect time of year for it.
[0:28:44 – 0:28:44] Erik: Yeah.
[0:28:44 – 0:28:48] Erik: But I mean, just absolutely crazy how fast it changes.
[0:28:48 – 0:28:52] Erik: Like Marquette is, it’s granite, hard rock.
[0:28:53 – 0:29:07] Erik: And then you just drive an hour to the east and you get into sandstone and you get into crazy like sandstone waterfalls, which they, you know, they create those big like round ball, like bulbous round like amphitheater.
[0:29:07 – 0:29:07] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:08 – 0:29:13] Erik: Like almost seems like something that you would see like out in like New York upstate or something.
[0:29:13 – 0:29:19] Erik: And it’s all soft rock and really sandy soil, like jack pine barrens.
[0:29:20 – 0:29:22] Erik: Kind of crazy how fast it changes.
[0:29:23 – 0:29:26] Erik: I mean, Lake Superior is a gem on this planet.
[0:29:27 – 0:29:27] Erik: I mean, my God.
[0:29:27 – 0:29:28] Erik: For sure.
[0:29:28 – 0:29:30] Erik: It’s an incredible lake and…
[0:29:32 – 0:29:37] Erik: I love my time down in the desert, and I’ve gone back and forth as to whether or not maybe I could call that a home.
[0:29:37 – 0:29:40] Erik: But, man, Lake Superior keeps just wowing me.
[0:29:41 – 0:29:42] Erik: I’ve got to do the circle tour.
[0:29:42 – 0:29:43] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:43 – 0:29:44] Adam: I’ve got to go all the way.
[0:29:44 – 0:29:49] Adam: I’ve been as far as Wawa on the north side, coming from Sault Ste.
[0:29:49 – 0:29:50] Adam: Marie back in my youth.
[0:29:51 – 0:29:54] Adam: And then I’ve really only been as far as Thunder Bay the other way.
[0:29:55 – 0:30:00] Adam: I’m pretty sure I’ve kind of connected, but I’ve never followed the whole shoreline on the UP.
[0:30:00 – 0:30:04] Adam: I want to go out to that copper point on the hook or the finger.
[0:30:04 – 0:30:05] Erik: Oh, yeah, up on the Keweenaw.
[0:30:05 – 0:30:08] Adam: Yeah, I want to go up to Keweenaw and see what that’s all about.
[0:30:08 – 0:30:14] Adam: And I obviously still like, if it’s not on the top of the list, it’s top three to get to Isle Royale.
[0:30:14 – 0:30:16] Adam: Still not been out there.
[0:30:16 – 0:30:18] Adam: So I got a lot of superior still to see.
[0:30:19 – 0:30:19] Erik: Yeah.
[0:30:20 – 0:30:25] Erik: I mean, even after this last trip, I was like, well, I’ve maybe seen a quarter of the lake.
[0:30:25 – 0:30:25] Erik: Yeah.
[0:30:25 – 0:30:26] Erik: You know where I really want to go?
[0:30:27 – 0:30:34] Adam: Well, I also want to see Sleeping Giant from the ground, but I really want to go to like Micho Picatinny.
[0:30:34 – 0:30:35] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[0:30:35 – 0:30:36] Adam: The other island.
[0:30:37 – 0:30:37] Erik: The other one.
[0:30:37 – 0:30:43] Adam: I think that one’s way harder to get to, but I’m pretty sure you can get to it if you have enough cash and a briefcase.
[0:30:44 – 0:30:49] Erik: Yeah, you might have to work a little bit on one of those barges.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:50] Erik: I wish.
[0:30:50 – 0:30:57] Erik: Or win some kind of a questionable, I don’t know, is it a raffle?
[0:30:58 – 0:31:01] Adam: To get on the old sex trafficking boat?
[0:31:01 – 0:31:02] Adam: I guess I didn’t win this year.
[0:31:03 – 0:31:03] Erik: No.
[0:31:03 – 0:31:04] Erik: Did you enter?
[0:31:04 – 0:31:05] Adam: Always.
[0:31:05 – 0:31:05] Adam: Always.
[0:31:06 – 0:31:06] Adam: Yeah.
[0:31:07 – 0:31:09] Adam: I didn’t win this year again.
[0:31:09 – 0:31:11] Adam: The raffle to get a cruise on the big lake.
[0:31:11 – 0:31:14] Erik: Well, your date of birth probably precludes you from winning.
[0:31:15 – 0:31:15] Erik: Too old.
[0:31:15 – 0:31:16] Erik: Too male.
[0:31:18 – 0:31:21] Erik: Two has a social security number.
[0:31:22 – 0:31:22] Erik: Aw.
[0:31:23 – 0:31:23] Erik: Aw.
[0:31:23 – 0:31:25] Adam: Let me on, guys.
[0:31:25 – 0:31:26] Adam: I can cook.
[0:31:26 – 0:31:27] Adam: You can just drop me off at Micho Picatinny.
[0:31:27 – 0:31:28] Adam: That’d be great.
[0:31:28 – 0:31:30] Adam: Please, just pitch me over the side.
[0:31:32 – 0:31:33] Adam: I’ll make it down there.
[0:31:33 – 0:31:34] Adam: I’m pretty sure there’s a way out there.
[0:31:35 – 0:31:37] Adam: It’s like a provincial park, I believe.
[0:31:38 – 0:31:38] Adam: Yeah.
[0:31:39 – 0:31:39] Erik: Yeah.
[0:31:40 – 0:31:43] Erik: I mean, Tumble Home field trip to the South Shore in the summer.
[0:31:43 – 0:31:55] Erik: I mean, I can’t even imagine what Sandpoint down there just east of Marquette in the Painted Rocks National Lakeshore looks like in the summer.
[0:31:55 – 0:31:55] Erik: Yeah.
[0:31:55 – 0:31:56] Erik: I mean, it looks like a paradise.
[0:31:58 – 0:32:04] Erik: I mean, we got up on some of the cliffs looking back down, and I was like, I haven’t seen water that azure.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:05] Adam: Azure.
[0:32:06 – 0:32:06] Adam: It’s like this can.
[0:32:07 – 0:32:12] Erik: Yeah, like that blue and welcoming since I’ve been down in Mexico.
[0:32:12 – 0:32:14] Adam: It’s like the Northwoods Caribbean up here.
[0:32:14 – 0:32:15] Erik: It was mid-November.
[0:32:15 – 0:32:17] Erik: I’m like, what does this look like in the summer?
[0:32:17 – 0:32:20] Adam: Just beckoning for just a get in.
[0:32:20 – 0:32:21] Adam: For a sup.
[0:32:21 – 0:32:22] Erik: Yeah.
[0:32:23 – 0:32:24] Adam: Or maybe a boogie board.
[0:32:24 – 0:32:24] Adam: Something.
[0:32:24 – 0:32:25] Erik: Something.
[0:32:26 – 0:32:28] Erik: For sure, a sup with speed lines behind you.
[0:32:29 – 0:32:31] Adam: We’d have to go to Whitefish Point and see the bell.
[0:32:32 – 0:32:35] Adam: Spend some time really at the locks in Sault Ste.
[0:32:35 – 0:32:35] Adam: Marie.
[0:32:35 – 0:32:43] Adam: I’ve driven through there, but I never just hung out and appreciated the majesty that are the grand locks.
[0:32:43 – 0:32:46] Adam: Yeah.
[0:32:46 – 0:32:50] Adam: And go then north of there, you can stop at the beach where the life raft washed up.
[0:32:50 – 0:32:51] Erik: Oh, God, yeah.
[0:32:51 – 0:32:52] Erik: The beach is down there, too.
[0:32:53 – 0:32:54] Erik: Just, like I said, Sand Point.
[0:32:54 – 0:32:56] Erik: I mean, that’s what it is.
[0:32:56 – 0:32:59] Erik: It is an epic point of incredible sand.
[0:33:00 – 0:33:00] Adam: Yeah.
[0:33:01 – 0:33:04] Adam: There’s a lot of gold in that sand down in the South Shore, too.
[0:33:04 – 0:33:04] Adam: Beautiful.
[0:33:04 – 0:33:05] Adam: Beautiful stuff.
[0:33:05 – 0:33:06] Adam: See the Keweenaw.
[0:33:06 – 0:33:07] Adam: Go to Wawa again.
[0:33:07 – 0:33:09] Erik: Yeah.
[0:33:09 – 0:33:10] Erik: Find the caribou.
[0:33:10 – 0:33:12] Adam: Go to Wawa.
[0:33:12 – 0:33:12] Adam: What’s the other?
[0:33:12 – 0:33:15] Adam: There’s a bunch of different provincial parks that go all the way around there.
[0:33:15 – 0:33:16] Erik: Yeah, either.
[0:33:16 – 0:33:23] Erik: I think the Eastern, the big, broad Eastern shore of Lake Superior is on my next list for…
[0:33:24 – 0:33:27] Erik: I mean, that’s going to be an endeavor to get over there.
[0:33:27 – 0:33:30] Erik: It’s going to be a multi-night, overnight trip to get over there.
[0:33:30 – 0:33:35] Erik: Desolate, wild, some crazy Ontario provincial parks, but…
[0:33:36 – 0:33:44] Erik: Yeah, I think I love Lake Superior even more now that I have even more perspective than I have before.
[0:33:44 – 0:33:46] Erik: Yeah, it’s a special one.
[0:33:46 – 0:33:49] Erik: Don’t let anybody ever fuck with it.
[0:33:51 – 0:33:52] Adam: Especially Whitefish Bay.
[0:33:53 – 0:33:55] Erik: Yeah, not Whitefish Bay.
[0:33:55 – 0:33:58] Adam: Would have made it if they put 14 more miles behind her.
[0:33:58 – 0:33:58] Adam: Yeah.
[0:33:58 – 0:34:01] Adam: A lot of big whitefish in that lake.
[0:34:01 – 0:34:01] Erik: I’m sure.
[0:34:01 – 0:34:04] Erik: Yeah, probably a couple of record breakers.
[0:34:06 – 0:34:08] Adam: Like, yeah, what’s the biggest Menominee in Lake Superior?
[0:34:09 – 0:34:09] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:34:10 – 0:34:11] Adam: Probably as big as my dog.
[0:34:12 – 0:34:14] Erik: The size of a bottlenose dolphin.
[0:34:14 – 0:34:17] Adam: You could put that thing in a harness and ski-jor with it.
[0:34:17 – 0:34:19] Erik: Yeah, get on some skis, pulled up like the Fonz.
[0:34:20 – 0:34:21] Adam: Yeah, water ski-jor.
[0:34:21 – 0:34:22] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:34:22 – 0:34:24] Adam: Behind a record-setting Menominee.
[0:34:25 – 0:34:25] Adam: Menominee.
[0:34:26 – 0:34:26] Adam: Mm-hmm.
[0:34:27 – 0:34:28] Adam: Wow.
[0:34:28 – 0:34:29] Adam: Been quite the week.
[0:34:30 – 0:34:31] Adam: Yeah.
[0:34:31 – 0:34:33] Adam: So we’re doing pretty good here.
[0:34:33 – 0:34:35] Adam: I’m like Dennis Hale.
[0:34:37 – 0:34:40] Erik: Yeah, well, it’s a long time ago that that cold open started this whole episode.
[0:34:40 – 0:34:43] Erik: I might need to refresh my memory.
[0:34:43 – 0:34:44] Erik: Dennis Hale?
[0:34:44 – 0:34:47] Adam: The thing is, it’s a fun cold open because really nothing happens in it.
[0:34:48 – 0:34:49] Adam: The story has not even begun.
[0:34:50 – 0:34:50] Adam: Wow.
[0:34:50 – 0:34:57] Adam: Dennis Hale, the only survivor of the Daniel J. Morrell sinking in 1966.
[0:34:58 – 0:35:01] Adam: And he almost, well, he did.
[0:35:01 – 0:35:08] Adam: He missed the boat and was going to lose his vacation pay and his crude time off and all his other good benefits later.
[0:35:08 – 0:35:10] Adam: Which sounded pretty incredible for 1966.
[0:35:10 – 0:35:12] Erik: I was going to say, when did this boat go down?
[0:35:12 – 0:35:14] Adam: 66 in the end.
[0:35:14 – 0:35:16] Erik: It was missing out on like six Gs of pay?
[0:35:16 – 0:35:20] Adam: Yeah, thousands of dollars in benefits and bonuses for the end of the season.
[0:35:20 – 0:35:22] Erik: That’s insane.
[0:35:22 – 0:35:32] Adam: Pretty sure there’s more in this, but the captains especially would be getting crazy bonuses for tonnage back in their contracts back in those days.
[0:35:32 – 0:35:38] Adam: So they were notoriously beating the shit out of them boats to try and haul as much iron ore as they could.
[0:35:38 – 0:35:39] Erik: Yeah, push them to the limit.
[0:35:39 – 0:35:40] Adam: Yeah.
[0:35:41 – 0:35:44] Adam: So then he arrives.
[0:35:44 – 0:35:51] Adam: He tried to just go home and make sweet love to his wife in Ashtabula, Ohio, for one night before getting back on.
[0:35:51 – 0:35:52] Adam: He missed Thanksgiving.
[0:35:52 – 0:35:53] Adam: Just let me go home for one night.
[0:35:53 – 0:35:56] Adam: And Captain Crowley left him at the dock.
[0:35:56 – 0:35:59] Adam: They missed it by, it seemed like, you know, minutes.
[0:36:00 – 0:36:05] Adam: The boat had just pulled away from the dock as they drove up in their Pontiac Firebird.
[0:36:06 – 0:36:09] Erik: He didn’t survive because he just didn’t get on the boat, though, right?
[0:36:10 – 0:36:12] Adam: No, yeah.
[0:36:12 – 0:36:15] Adam: They lied about their car being broken down, and Crowley’s like, well, I guess.
[0:36:16 – 0:36:19] Adam: Captain was like, you can meet us in Windsor, Ontario.
[0:36:19 – 0:36:22] Adam: We’re going to take on some coal, which was their main fuel source at the time.
[0:36:23 – 0:36:25] Adam: Funny enough, well, I don’t know if that’s funny.
[0:36:25 – 0:36:30] Adam: I mean, now all those boats run on diesel for the most part, and very few actual steamships left.
[0:36:31 – 0:36:32] Adam: Yeah, they wouldn’t…
[0:36:32 – 0:36:34] Adam: I don’t know how often do they have to take on diesel.
[0:36:34 – 0:36:40] Adam: I guess I just assume they had enough to go all the way nonstop these days, but maybe they are stopping for fuel more often than I think.
[0:36:41 – 0:36:44] Adam: If you watch the tracker, it sure doesn’t seem like they’re making that many pit stops.
[0:36:44 – 0:36:46] Adam: No, I don’t think there’s nearly as many stops.
[0:36:46 – 0:36:52] Erik: I mean, Marquette very clearly is not as much of a depot as it used to be.
[0:36:52 – 0:36:57] Erik: I don’t even think the upper docks are seemingly used as much.
[0:36:57 – 0:37:00] Erik: The lower docks are very much defunct, like…
[0:37:01 – 0:37:03] Erik: Maybe one of the coolest Airbnbs I’ve ever stayed at.
[0:37:04 – 0:37:13] Erik: The angle of the little deck out front of it perfectly coincided with the sunrise, and it just shot right down the middle of it.
[0:37:13 – 0:37:23] Erik: And you could see we were right above this parking lot, and people would come down in the morning, and they would all get out of their cars and get the picture of the sun coming up right through the window.
[0:37:24 – 0:37:29] Erik: I was like, it doesn’t probably line up like this all that often.
[0:37:29 – 0:37:38] Erik: This is like New York City where they do the city hinge or whatever where the sun lines up with like 8th Avenue or whatever.
[0:37:38 – 0:37:39] Erik: It just shoots right down.
[0:37:39 – 0:37:46] Adam: Yeah, I’m sure it’s known amongst locals like, oh yeah, on the 17th, perfect.
[0:37:46 – 0:37:49] Adam: If you can see the sunrise, you’re set.
[0:37:50 – 0:37:53] Erik: Yeah, just shooting right down the guts of that thing.
[0:37:53 – 0:37:54] Erik: And it’s just this insane…
[0:37:55 – 0:38:01] Erik: Such an appreciation for the infrastructure that needed to exist to make…
[0:38:02 – 0:38:14] Erik: I mean, and it still does exist to a certain extent, but there’s something about that old turn of the century to the 40s when they would build things just to insane scale.
[0:38:14 – 0:38:17] Erik: And the way that whole apparatus works.
[0:38:17 – 0:38:18] Erik: And really, the only…
[0:38:19 – 0:38:36] Erik: One of the best examples of how I know that that even works is from that first episode of Joe Pera, where it shows the chute dumping down and just puking coal or iron into the top side of the belly, filling those boats up.
[0:38:36 – 0:38:39] Adam: You got to be very careful in the way you fill them, too.
[0:38:39 – 0:38:44] Adam: I remember that about the Fitzgerald conversation.
[0:38:45 – 0:38:58] Adam: Oh, I should say, too, the book we’re basing this entire episode set on is by Michael Schumacher, who had written Mighty Fitz, which we covered two years ago.
[0:38:59 – 0:39:04] Erik: How many other books on Great Lakes tanker shipwrecks has he written?
[0:39:04 – 0:39:05] Adam: Like five or six.
[0:39:06 – 0:39:06] Erik: Dang.
[0:39:06 – 0:39:12] Adam: He’s got one that’s just on North Shore shipwrecks that just came out, so I really want to get after that one.
[0:39:12 – 0:39:13] Erik: An anthology?
[0:39:13 – 0:39:13] Adam: Yeah.
[0:39:14 – 0:39:14] Adam: Okay.
[0:39:14 – 0:39:20] Adam: It’s a bunch of different shipwrecks, not just like one premiere, so…
[0:39:20 – 0:39:26] Erik: Well, there’s a couple down on the south shore that are really close to shore that in the summer you can just swim out over.
[0:39:26 – 0:39:27] Erik: Oh, I don’t like that.
[0:39:27 – 0:39:28] Erik: Exactly.
[0:39:28 – 0:39:29] Adam: I don’t like that at all.
[0:39:30 – 0:39:32] Erik: The friends I was down there with were like, yeah, you can just swim out to it.
[0:39:32 – 0:39:33] Erik: I was like, ugh.
[0:39:33 – 0:39:34] Erik: No thanks.
[0:39:34 – 0:39:35] Erik: I don’t want to do that.
[0:39:35 – 0:39:37] Erik: I don’t want to touch a shipwreck with my toe.
[0:39:37 – 0:39:38] Adam: I don’t want to be able to see it.
[0:39:39 – 0:39:42] Adam: This book was by Michael Schumacher.
[0:39:42 – 0:39:43] Adam: This is Torn in Two.
[0:39:44 – 0:39:46] Adam: It came out in 2016.
[0:39:46 – 0:39:50] Adam: So this came out after The Mighty Fitz was written.
[0:39:51 – 0:39:58] Adam: But after I read this, then I did go back because you had the paper copy of Mighty Fitz, and it was still in the library.
[0:39:58 – 0:40:00] Adam: I grabbed that, and I read that.
[0:40:01 – 0:40:05] Adam: I finished it as we were flying over Lake Superior on the 747.
[0:40:05 – 0:40:06] Adam: That’s right.
[0:40:07 – 0:40:12] Adam: for Mayor Canada, right over the spot where the Fitzgerald had sunk.
[0:40:12 – 0:40:19] Adam: And we did go over a good chunk of Lake Huron on that flight as well, but it was the more northern part of Huron.
[0:40:19 – 0:40:23] Adam: We did not go over the part of Huron where the Morrell rests.
[0:40:25 – 0:40:30] Erik: You may need to give me a map or describe where exactly that was.
[0:40:30 – 0:40:33] Adam: It’s pretty close to the thumb of Lake Huron, though, if that makes sense to you.
[0:40:33 – 0:40:40] Adam: It’s just off the thumb, 14 to 20 miles north and east of the thumb, but halfway up.
[0:40:41 – 0:40:46] Adam: They’re kind of right in the middle, and then there’s that big bay where the thumb is.
[0:40:46 – 0:40:53] Adam: The thumb on Michigan is, like, wider than, you know, Door County on Wisconsin.
[0:40:53 – 0:40:57] Adam: The thumb is, like, you know, more pointy and, like, Green Bay is a little more protected.
[0:40:57 – 0:41:02] Adam: Like, I don’t have the map in front of me, but the bay that is caused by the thumb on Michigan is, like, more wide open.
[0:41:02 – 0:41:10] Adam: So, like, that was a problem because they were getting, like, crazy winds from, like, multiple directions due to the – it was, like, a cash-based scenario, but, like, times a million.
[0:41:11 – 0:41:11] Adam: Yeah.
[0:41:11 – 0:41:16] Erik: Yeah, what was the term, the French term for the quilted waffling?
[0:41:17 – 0:41:19] Adam: You got way closer than I would have.
[0:41:19 – 0:41:22] Adam: I knew exactly what you were talking about as soon as you started saying it.
[0:41:23 – 0:41:27] Adam: Yeah, it’s like rippled waffle or something, yeah.
[0:41:27 – 0:41:30] Adam: Quilted waffling, that’s what it was in French.
[0:41:30 – 0:41:43] Erik: Well, yeah, we don’t have the French, but refer back to the episodes from the How to Read Water episodes from about a month and a half ago if you want the actual French translation to that, but.
[0:41:44 – 0:41:46] Adam: Yeah, I just listened to that episode not too long ago.
[0:41:46 – 0:41:50] Adam: I was way behind, and I’m pretty much all caught up now on Tumble Home.
[0:41:50 – 0:41:51] Adam: It’s incredible.
[0:41:51 – 0:41:52] Erik: It’s still good.
[0:41:52 – 0:41:53] Erik: It’s still good.
[0:41:53 – 0:41:58] Adam: This show still makes me laugh somehow, like laughing at my own jokes and chortling.
[0:41:58 – 0:42:00] Adam: People are like, what are you listening to?
[0:42:00 – 0:42:01] Adam: It’s like nothing.
[0:42:01 – 0:42:16] Adam: nothing you don’t don’t ask me I got a picture for you so I read this one on the like phone app from the library Libby yes and all the pictures on Libby and at least on my maybe it’s because I read in dark mode it’s weird though that they would make the pictures go to dark mode like that all the pictures are in negative
[0:42:16 – 0:42:17] Erik: The negative print.
[0:42:17 – 0:42:21] Adam: And so I just have a bunch of screen grabs from the book from Libby that I’m referencing.
[0:42:21 – 0:42:31] Adam: And then I have a note card that lists basically the order of the passages and generally whereabouts to start and end the read and some other notes.
[0:42:31 – 0:42:32] Adam: So I mean…
[0:42:32 – 0:42:34] Adam: I don’t know why, but all the pictures are in reverse, but I do have a picture.
[0:42:34 – 0:42:36] Adam: Which makes them seem extra spooky.
[0:42:36 – 0:42:37] Adam: It does, yeah.
[0:42:37 – 0:42:38] Adam: This one’s really haunted.
[0:42:38 – 0:42:44] Adam: I got a picture of the Daniel J. Murrell entering Lake Huron around 11 a.m. on November 25th, 1966.
[0:42:44 – 0:42:47] Erik: It looks like that picture was taken at 3 a.m.
[0:42:47 – 0:42:48] Erik: It’s pitch black.
[0:42:48 – 0:42:53] Adam: This view by Thomas Sikora is one of the last photographs taken of the auric area.
[0:42:53 – 0:42:53] Adam: One of the last?
[0:42:54 – 0:42:55] Adam: So, like, they have other ones?
[0:42:55 – 0:42:56] Adam: Yeah, maybe.
[0:42:56 – 0:42:57] Adam: They’re on Lake Huron already.
[0:42:57 – 0:43:01] Adam: They’ve already gotten their call in Windsor, and they’ve picked up Dennis Hale and his buddy.
[0:43:02 – 0:43:02] Adam: The heck?
[0:43:02 – 0:43:03] Adam: Everybody’s on board.
[0:43:03 – 0:43:07] Adam: They did catch up and get on the ship at Windsor.
[0:43:07 – 0:43:08] Adam: Okay.
[0:43:08 – 0:43:10] Adam: So, yeah, they drove like hell to get up there.
[0:43:10 – 0:43:12] Erik: And then he also then survived.
[0:43:13 – 0:43:13] Adam: Correct.
[0:43:13 – 0:43:14] Adam: Wow.
[0:43:15 – 0:43:16] Adam: His buddy did not, though.
[0:43:16 – 0:43:21] Adam: Dennis Hale was the only survivor of the Daniel J. Murrell disaster.
[0:43:21 – 0:43:26] Adam: So, yeah, the poor kid that he had given a ride with down to Erie and then picked him back up.
[0:43:26 – 0:43:35] Adam: And they were late, and they called and lied their way back onto the boat to make sure they got their vacation pay because they’re desperate.
[0:43:35 – 0:43:37] Adam: And that’s how they like you in America.
[0:43:37 – 0:43:38] Erik: Was his buddy a married man?
[0:43:39 – 0:43:40] Adam: I don’t think so.
[0:43:40 – 0:43:40] Adam: I think he was younger.
[0:43:41 – 0:43:42] Adam: But I don’t know.
[0:43:42 – 0:43:45] Adam: I didn’t get a ton of detail on him from the book, but I don’t think so.
[0:43:45 – 0:43:46] Erik: That’s a difference maker.
[0:43:47 – 0:43:54] Adam: But they get back, they meet him up in Windsor and get back on the boat.
[0:43:54 – 0:43:58] Adam: So they get up to Windsor and they’re like, we’re barely going to make it.
[0:43:58 – 0:44:00] Adam: And they get up there and the boat’s not there.
[0:44:00 – 0:44:02] Adam: They’re like, what’s going on?
[0:44:02 – 0:44:08] Adam: And because it was so rough on even Lake Erie, the captain had then, he was like, we got to leave now.
[0:44:08 – 0:44:11] Adam: But then he got out there and he’s like, actually, I’m going to hunker down for a little bit.
[0:44:12 – 0:44:41] Adam: nice so then they end up having to wait at windsor for like quite a while for the boat to get in and then it was one of those things it was like with the fitzgerald like they had altered their course to go farther north but they didn’t like hug the north shore like they could have they kind of just did like a medium safe route and by like delaying and taking the longer route the fitzgerald and the arthur anderson like ended up in like the very heart of that storm in 1975 which ultimately sunk them
[0:44:42 – 0:44:48] Adam: Had they just gone the normal route, they would have gone through some rough stuff, but they probably almost certainly would have just made it.
[0:44:48 – 0:44:52] Adam: And this one, too, he delayed in the name of safety.
[0:44:53 – 0:45:01] Adam: He left quick, which caused these guys to miss the boat, and then he delayed on Lake Erie for a little bit before they got to Detroit in the name of safety.
[0:45:02 – 0:45:06] Adam: And then pick these guys up and then headed out onto Lake Huron.
[0:45:06 – 0:45:09] Adam: Again, like putting them into the worst exact part of the storm.
[0:45:09 – 0:45:12] Adam: Granted, forecasting was not very accurate back then.
[0:45:12 – 0:45:16] Erik: This is, what, almost 10 years prior to the Fitzgerald?
[0:45:16 – 0:45:18] Adam: So this is 66.
[0:45:18 – 0:45:24] Adam: The Carl D. Bradley, which I’m at this point because Schumacher’s got a book on the Bradley, too.
[0:45:24 – 0:45:26] Adam: So maybe in two or three years, we’ll do the Bradley book.
[0:45:27 – 0:45:29] Adam: That was in the 50s, Lake Michigan.
[0:45:30 – 0:45:31] Adam: That one also split in two.
[0:45:33 – 0:45:56] Adam: and sunk immediately um but it did have survivors and then this one was in 66 and sunk all hands lost except for dennis hale and then uh and then 75 was the fitzgerald and that one as of now is the last like major shipwreck that we have seen with modern or boat
[0:45:56 – 0:45:58] Erik: Is that why it had a song written about it?
[0:45:58 – 0:46:00] Erik: Because it was the last one?
[0:46:00 – 0:46:11] Adam: It was just considered unsinkable and unfathomable at that point because of the things they had learned from the Bradley and the Morrell and the changes they had made, which we’ll get to probably in part two.
[0:46:13 – 0:46:15] Adam: The boats then that were built…
[0:46:15 – 0:46:39] Adam: thereafter were considered unsinkable and and furthermore like the fitzgerald was like the nicest boat in the fleet yeah like every aspect of it from its from its mechanical systems and design to like its interiors it was the flagship and had like the most senior crew and they knew what they were doing and it would never ever happen and yet still they lost another one
[0:46:41 – 0:46:54] Adam: McSorley McSorley underestimated the power of the of this storm and we will never know what really happened but you know listen back to those episodes there’s
[0:46:55 – 0:47:20] Adam: plausible theories as to what what mistakes were made but they’re almost certainly like human error as to what brought that boat down not actually the boat just breaking like where these boats uh the bradley and the morel just snapped yeah just there’s nothing i mean other than sailing into a hurricane force wind and 25 foot seas there’s nothing really they could have done to save those boats um
[0:47:21 – 0:47:23] Adam: We’ll get to this, and there’s one key thing.
[0:47:24 – 0:47:32] Adam: There’s one key main difference between boats like the Bradley and Morrell and the Fitzgerald that really made people believe that it can’t happen.
[0:47:32 – 0:47:33] Adam: It can’t happen.
[0:47:33 – 0:47:34] Adam: Not again.
[0:47:34 – 0:47:34] Adam: Not again.
[0:47:34 – 0:47:39] Adam: We better move into it because I know you’re on the edge of the seat now.
[0:47:39 – 0:47:40] Adam: I have more questions.
[0:47:40 – 0:47:41] Adam: I can just keep firing questions away.
[0:47:41 – 0:47:42] Adam: You should.
[0:47:42 – 0:47:45] Erik: But I feel like some of these questions might just be answered.
[0:47:47 – 0:48:01] Adam: Officials of the Cambria Steamship Company had good reason to celebrate in 1906 when the Daniel J. Murrell and the Edward Y. Townsend began their services as two of the longest and sturdiest bulk carriers on the Great Lakes.
[0:48:01 – 0:48:05] Adam: Times were good, and the demand for iron ore was high.
[0:48:05 – 0:48:08] Adam: New vessels were being constructed at a brisk pace.
[0:48:09 – 0:48:17] Adam: At the time of her launch on August 18th, the Townsend, at 602 feet, was longer than any boat on the lakes.
[0:48:17 – 0:48:21] Adam: The Morrell, launched four days later, was one foot shorter.
[0:48:22 – 0:48:23] Adam: There you go.
[0:48:24 – 0:48:25] Erik: What was the total length then?
[0:48:25 – 0:48:27] Adam: 60, where’d it go?
[0:48:27 – 0:48:29] Adam: I have already moved the page over.
[0:48:29 – 0:48:31] Adam: In the 600s?
[0:48:31 – 0:48:32] Adam: 602 and then 601.
[0:48:33 – 0:48:33] Adam: Okay.
[0:48:33 – 0:48:36] Erik: So pretty short compared to the boats floating around these days.
[0:48:37 – 0:48:37] Adam: Right.
[0:48:37 – 0:48:38] Adam: Ain’t even close.
[0:48:38 – 0:48:47] Adam: Those thousand footers, you know, nowadays you see like the Arthur Anderson, which is still, you know, working out there.
[0:48:47 – 0:48:48] Erik: Who went by today?
[0:48:48 – 0:48:52] Erik: I saw one just out in front of my house today this afternoon at about 2.30.
[0:48:52 – 0:48:55] Adam: It was more than likely the Barker or the McCarthy.
[0:48:55 – 0:48:56] Erik: Those are big ones, though.
[0:48:56 – 0:48:57] Adam: Yeah, there’s 2,000 putters going on.
[0:48:57 – 0:48:59] Adam: The same ones we saw last week.
[0:48:59 – 0:49:02] Adam: Those two are just, like, shadowing each other back and forth up and down the lakes.
[0:49:02 – 0:49:03] Adam: Nice.
[0:49:03 – 0:49:11] Adam: One of them has pulled in and, like, is seeking refuge in Thunder Bay again because of the, like, north winds that are coming in tomorrow.
[0:49:11 – 0:49:11] Erik: Because of weather?
[0:49:12 – 0:49:14] Adam: And the others are all just, like, gunning for it.
[0:49:14 – 0:49:15] Adam: So, you know.
[0:49:16 – 0:49:17] Adam: That’s the thing.
[0:49:17 – 0:49:21] Adam: More and more, you see these boats when there is going to be forecasted, and now they’re forecasting.
[0:49:21 – 0:49:22] Adam: Sure, it’s a lot better now.
[0:49:23 – 0:49:27] Adam: But you can look at the wind app, and you’re like, man, it’s going to be a nasty north wind tomorrow.
[0:49:27 – 0:49:33] Adam: All the boats are progressively taking actions ahead of time to really hug the north shore.
[0:49:33 – 0:49:35] Adam: They don’t take the medium route.
[0:49:35 – 0:49:38] Adam: They take the super safe route if it’s going to be nasty, nasty.
[0:49:38 – 0:49:41] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:49:41 – 0:49:47] Adam: Back in these days, in the time of the Morrell or the Fitzgerald, captains didn’t go to seek refuge in Thunder Bay.
[0:49:48 – 0:49:51] Adam: Their tonnage bonuses required them to get as many runs as they could.
[0:49:51 – 0:49:54] Adam: They just went through everything and beat the hell out of those boats.
[0:49:55 – 0:50:00] Erik: I’m sure the pay structure is a little bit different in terms of providing more safe…
[0:50:00 – 0:50:05] Adam: Yeah, there’s probably bonuses for safety instead of for tonnage records because they’re 1,000-foot ships.
[0:50:06 – 0:50:07] Adam: They’re making bank no matter what.
[0:50:07 – 0:50:08] Adam: They’re making plenty of runs.
[0:50:09 – 0:50:13] Erik: We’d rather have this ship not break in half than you get there six hours earlier.
[0:50:13 – 0:50:14] Adam: I think the thinking is different nowadays.
[0:50:14 – 0:50:20] Adam: They’re like, these are big investments, and they’re not building ships like they were back then, and you’ve got to make these guys last.
[0:50:21 – 0:50:24] Erik: Well, and there’s also probably not nearly as much of a demand.
[0:50:24 – 0:50:33] Erik: We’re not feeding a crazy world war machine where we need to get the iron ore to the factories, and time is of the essence.
[0:50:33 – 0:50:38] Erik: It gets there when it gets there, and obviously we don’t…
[0:50:38 – 0:50:44] Erik: I mean, it would be absolutely insane in this day and age to hear about one of those things sinking now.
[0:50:44 – 0:50:45] Erik: It would.
[0:50:45 – 0:50:46] Erik: It would be mind-blowing.
[0:50:46 – 0:50:49] Adam: But yeah, I feel like if you just watch the ship tracker…
[0:50:51 – 0:50:54] Adam: they are paying a lot of respect to these storms, especially in November.
[0:50:54 – 0:50:57] Adam: Like they go out of their way to like avoid them.
[0:50:57 – 0:50:57] Adam: Yeah.
[0:50:58 – 0:51:03] Adam: I don’t think they were really like, they didn’t really care or they didn’t, they didn’t have the forecasting.
[0:51:03 – 0:51:04] Adam: They’re just like, whatever we’re going.
[0:51:05 – 0:51:05] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:05 – 0:51:05] Adam: You know,
[0:51:06 – 0:51:07] Erik: Just a little bit of chop.
[0:51:07 – 0:51:11] Erik: It’s like that scene from Wolf of Wall Street where they got to get to the…
[0:51:12 – 0:51:14] Erik: They got to get to Monaco in like a day.
[0:51:14 – 0:51:15] Erik: Yeah, there’s a little bit of chop.
[0:51:15 – 0:51:17] Erik: How bad can chop be?
[0:51:17 – 0:51:23] Erik: And then it just cuts to them just basically sinking the ship and having to be rescued by Italian search and rescue.
[0:51:25 – 0:51:25] Adam: Uh…
[0:51:27 – 0:51:33] Adam: Yeah, they’re building a ton of ships back in these days, too, and all of them right here in North America.
[0:51:34 – 0:51:35] Adam: I was looking back.
[0:51:35 – 0:51:41] Adam: I was telling you I was looking back at, like, all the 1,000-footers and just seeing, like, what year were they built and where were they built, you know?
[0:51:41 – 0:51:49] Adam: And a lot of them were just built, like, in Superior, in Sturgeon Bay, just right here on the Great Lakes.
[0:51:49 – 0:51:49] Adam: Yeah.
[0:51:49 – 0:51:51] Adam: Building 1,000-footers in, like, the late 70s.
[0:51:52 – 0:51:56] Adam: Been incredible times to be able to, like, go see those things being, like, laid down.
[0:51:58 – 0:52:04] Adam: Oddly enough, the Morrell and Townsend were considered sister ships, even though they were constructed by different shipbuilders.
[0:52:05 – 0:52:08] Adam: The Morrell by West Bay Shipbuilding in West Bay, Michigan.
[0:52:08 – 0:52:12] Adam: and the Townsend by Superior Shipbuilding in Superior, Wisconsin.
[0:52:12 – 0:52:21] Adam: The sister ship designation probably arose from the fact that they were identical, operating for the same company, and launched within a month of each other in 1906.
[0:52:22 – 0:52:25] Adam: Both had been named for executives who worked for Cambria Ironworks.
[0:52:26 – 0:52:28] Adam: I’m not giving you any backstory on Morrell.
[0:52:29 – 0:52:29] Adam: Do you care?
[0:52:29 – 0:52:31] Adam: He’s just some guy.
[0:52:31 – 0:52:31] Adam: Some bigwig.
[0:52:32 – 0:52:33] Erik: Oh, where the name came from?
[0:52:33 – 0:52:36] Adam: Yeah, there are two executives, the Townsend and Morrell.
[0:52:37 – 0:52:38] Adam: Same for the Fitzgerald, really.
[0:52:39 – 0:52:41] Adam: These ships are all kind of named in the same way.
[0:52:41 – 0:52:45] Erik: Yeah, the banker that funded it or signed the paperwork to provide the money to have it built.
[0:52:46 – 0:52:56] Adam: Prior to the 1966 shipping season, when these boats were 60 years old, the inspectors saw a venerable, hard-working vessel beginning to show her age.
[0:52:57 – 0:53:08] Adam: She was seaworthy, but any boat with that many years of service had suffered some physical indignities from all the loading and unloading, the twisting and bending in heavy seas, and general day-to-day operations.
[0:53:09 – 0:53:11] Adam: The fall seasons had taken invisible toll as well.
[0:53:13 – 0:53:15] Adam: Here’s a key passage, Eric.
[0:53:15 – 0:53:22] Adam: The steel used in shipbuilding prior to 1948 could become weakened and brittle when sailing in cold, stormy weather.
[0:53:23 – 0:53:29] Adam: There had to be flexibility in the hull, of course, or a vessel would just snap in two in such conditions.
[0:53:29 – 0:53:38] Adam: But there is also the issue of a cumulative weakening over time, not unlike the way a paperclip bent back and forth repeatedly will eventually weaken and break.
[0:53:39 – 0:53:39] Adam: Yeah.
[0:53:39 – 0:53:42] Adam: So anything built before 48, that’s the key.
[0:53:42 – 0:53:49] Adam: And if you go look on the ship tracker and pull up any boat that’s out there now, there’s very few vessels that are still moving around that were built before 48.
[0:53:50 – 0:53:55] Adam: Pretty much all the oar boats out there nowadays are at least from the 50s or on.
[0:53:56 – 0:53:59] Adam: Like the Misha Pikatin, which had like a hull issue.
[0:53:59 – 0:54:01] Adam: Oh, a hull issue.
[0:54:01 – 0:54:03] Adam: Issue while we were out on the Frost River.
[0:54:03 – 0:54:11] Adam: It had a massive, you know, crack form in its hull while just mainly sailing in pretty calm seas out on Superior.
[0:54:11 – 0:54:13] Adam: That one was in like the early 50s.
[0:54:13 – 0:54:13] Adam: So…
[0:54:15 – 0:54:21] Adam: It was built with the newer design and the newer steel.
[0:54:22 – 0:54:37] Adam: Basically, after 1948, they had switched all production over to a better form of steel that had better capabilities in cold conditions and or was not susceptible to this sort of breakage, like an old paperclip.
[0:54:38 – 0:54:41] Erik: Yeah, it’d be crazy to get on and just see one of those boats.
[0:54:42 – 0:55:07] Erik: I mean, I can kind of picture it and imagine it, but for people used to the comforts and what things look like in this day and age, to go onto one of those boats and work and live for weeks, if not months on end, to know that it was built in the 50s and be like, well, I mean, they’ve done their best, but some of that stuff must be very outdated.
[0:55:08 – 0:55:09] Adam: Yeah.
[0:55:09 – 0:55:19] Adam: They’re built to last in some ways, but they do get a lot of maintenance in the off-season, and I’m sure that their maintenance programs these days are, again, these are huge investments.
[0:55:19 – 0:55:22] Adam: To replace one of these ships is an astronomical amount of money.
[0:55:22 – 0:55:24] Adam: They want to keep them in service as long as they can.
[0:55:24 – 0:55:27] Adam: Will the Michaud-Piqueton ever be put back in service?
[0:55:28 – 0:55:30] Adam: Who knows?
[0:55:30 – 0:55:32] Adam: They’ll have their actuaries figure out the math on that.
[0:55:32 – 0:55:35] Adam: Is it worth the money to fix them back up to…
[0:55:36 – 0:55:40] Adam: how long it’ll take for us to make that back at this point or just send in the backup ship.
[0:55:41 – 0:55:47] Adam: There is one that just based the Saginaw, I want to say, or there’s a ship that from that company that just took their route basically.
[0:55:47 – 0:55:56] Adam: And like now we’re running the Suda superior route and we’ll just kind of, the Michaud Peacans is sitting on dry dock basically at Frazier.
[0:55:56 – 0:55:58] Adam: Oh, I think it’s floating now, but it’s at Frazier.
[0:55:59 – 0:56:23] Adam: um yeah but these like you i show you the picture these things look basically like the same design as the uh as the fitzgerald it’s the ford pilot house classic uh big you know big smokestack in the back by the engine room uh all your cargo holds in the middle um the morel had 18 cargo holds i should have brought my model of the fitzgerald down for this episode we could have counted the holds on that one but yeah
[0:56:24 – 0:56:27] Adam: You know, the Fitzgerald was like 750 feet long.
[0:56:27 – 0:56:30] Adam: I mean, it wasn’t a whole lot bigger than what we’re talking about with these ships.
[0:56:30 – 0:56:34] Adam: It was just slightly newer with better steel, a little bit longer.
[0:56:35 – 0:56:42] Adam: You see a picture nowadays of like the Arthur Anderson, which is generally the same exact size as the Fitzgerald was.
[0:56:42 – 0:56:43] Adam: And you can see that boat now.
[0:56:44 – 0:56:48] Adam: You can see an overhead shot of him next to one of those 1,000-footers.
[0:56:48 – 0:56:50] Adam: It looks like a toy boat compared to those 1,000-footers.
[0:56:51 – 0:56:51] Adam: It’s insane.
[0:56:51 – 0:56:51] Erik: Yeah.
[0:56:52 – 0:57:00] Adam: If one of those 1,000-footers ever went down, that would be truly shocking on the level, I think, that what happened in 75 with the Fitzgerald.
[0:57:00 – 0:57:07] Erik: Yeah, I don’t even know where you would even begin to try and comprehend how something like that could happen.
[0:57:07 – 0:57:22] Adam: I mean, hell, even if the Michaud Picatinny had somehow sunk in the summer, that would be incomprehensible in this day and age, even for a boat from the 50s, just with the way they run them now and smarter with maintenance and way more careful.
[0:57:22 – 0:57:25] Erik: Yeah, communications, the way they forecast weather.
[0:57:25 – 0:57:25] Erik: Yeah.
[0:57:28 – 0:57:37] Adam: For a while, they started out, I like this little tidbit, back in the day, the pilot house and engine room were all in the middle, like an old Mississippi steamship.
[0:57:38 – 0:57:38] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[0:57:38 – 0:57:46] Adam: And then there’s cargo holds in forward and aft cargo holds, but the crew quarters and everything was in the middle.
[0:57:46 – 0:57:46] Adam: Okay.
[0:57:46 – 0:57:46] Adam: Yeah.
[0:57:46 – 0:58:02] Adam: And then like, yeah, early 1900s was when they first, like when these boats were coming out, that was like the beginning of the classic Laker design where the captain’s house is up front and the engine room’s in the back, which is to me the most, you know, beautiful of the ore boats.
[0:58:04 – 0:58:06] Adam: I don’t really care for the Burns Harbor.
[0:58:07 – 0:58:10] Erik: You prefer everything in the back?
[0:58:10 – 0:58:12] Adam: No, I like a forward pilot house.
[0:58:13 – 0:58:14] Adam: That’s why the court’s one of my favorites.
[0:58:14 – 0:58:16] Adam: It’s the only 1,000-footer with a forward pilot house.
[0:58:16 – 0:58:23] Adam: I think it looks very elegant and regal and harkens back to these boats.
[0:58:25 – 0:58:30] Adam: The Burns Harbor, the Indiana Harbor, the American Integrity, they’re all kind of nasty looking to me.
[0:58:31 – 0:58:33] Erik: Well, that’s what went by today, which one was back.
[0:58:33 – 0:58:33] Erik: Yeah, it is.
[0:58:33 – 0:58:35] Erik: It was just like, yeah, I don’t know.
[0:58:35 – 0:58:38] Erik: It seems like a Mississippi River tugboat.
[0:58:38 – 0:58:40] Adam: The McCarthy and Barker are both the same.
[0:58:40 – 0:58:43] Adam: All the other 1,000-footers are essentially built that way.
[0:58:43 – 0:58:45] Adam: Everything’s in one spot.
[0:58:45 – 0:58:48] Adam: It makes a lot of sense, but they’re squared off.
[0:58:48 – 0:58:49] Adam: They’re huge.
[0:58:49 – 0:58:49] Adam: They’re just…
[0:58:50 – 0:58:55] Adam: There’s not a lot of, like, majesty and, you know, elegance to the design.
[0:58:55 – 0:58:59] Erik: Yeah, it’s utilitarian, Spartan design, where it’s just, like, not even Spartan.
[0:58:59 – 0:59:02] Erik: It’s just, like, this is just what makes the most sense, to have it all back here.
[0:59:03 – 0:59:07] Erik: And, you know, at a certain extent, it makes sense.
[0:59:07 – 0:59:16] Erik: But, you know, sometimes… And really probably never in the case of making as much money by hauling iron…
[0:59:17 – 0:59:26] Erik: or as possible, but like sometimes aesthetics are nice, but they are not in the case of a thousand foot iron boats floating around on fresh water.
[0:59:27 – 0:59:30] Adam: We were talking about this a lot in the boat show episodes.
[0:59:30 – 0:59:32] Adam: You only live once.
[0:59:33 – 0:59:33] Adam: Yeah.
[0:59:34 – 0:59:35] Adam: Ride in a beautiful boat.
[0:59:36 – 0:59:36] Erik: Yes.
[0:59:36 – 0:59:42] Adam: And I would argue the Morrell and the Townsend were both beautiful ships.
[0:59:42 – 0:59:46] Adam: In 1966, weather forecasting was very basic compared to modern standards.
[0:59:46 – 0:59:49] Adam: You didn’t get an app with the wind in an animation form.
[0:59:49 – 0:59:51] Adam: You didn’t have a 10-day forecast.
[0:59:51 – 0:59:52] Adam: The models…
[0:59:52 – 0:59:57] Adam: were nonexistent and what they had was very inaccurate.
[0:59:57 – 1:00:01] Adam: And their ability to update their forecast was also very slow.
[1:00:02 – 1:00:04] Erik: I mean, I saw a forecast a couple weeks ago.
[1:00:04 – 1:00:05] Erik: I sent you a screenshot of it.
[1:00:06 – 1:00:08] Erik: They had drawn on the weather map with crayon.
[1:00:09 – 1:00:11] Erik: Did you see that picture I sent you?
[1:00:11 – 1:00:11] Adam: Yeah, you did.
[1:00:12 – 1:00:12] Erik: What was that?
[1:00:13 – 1:00:15] Adam: Gotta get this out now.
[1:00:15 – 1:00:22] Erik: 2024 and the National Weather Service is putting out forecast maps where it looked like somebody had drawn on it with crayon.
[1:00:24 – 1:00:28] Erik: That’s what I imagine the forecast maps in the 50s and 60s look like.
[1:00:28 – 1:00:29] Adam: I have some information.
[1:00:29 – 1:00:30] Erik: Chalk on a board.
[1:00:30 – 1:00:37] Adam: Information about weather conditions was collected from Great Lakes weather reporting stations, and the weather maps were drawn up.
[1:00:37 – 1:00:42] Adam: But all too often, by the time the data and projections were sent to ports around the lakes, the weather had changed.
[1:00:43 – 1:00:44] Adam: Mariners tended to be skeptical.
[1:00:45 – 1:00:54] Adam: With November weather being as volatile as it was, an ore boat’s captain had to rely on instinct and experience as much as on the storm postings and dated weather information.
[1:00:55 – 1:01:06] Adam: The captain always had the final say, whether to sail or stay in, but a number of factors entered the decision about sailing in November, especially near the end of the month, when the shipping season was drawing to a close.
[1:01:07 – 1:01:15] Adam: At one time, captains received tonnage bonuses for their annual hauls, and they stood to earn bigger bonuses if they took their vessels out for a couple runs at the end of the season.
[1:01:16 – 1:01:23] Adam: On other occasions, such as the morels, a captain might be ordered to make a trip or two to satisfy a company’s tonnage projections for a given season.
[1:01:24 – 1:01:29] Adam: The captain’s dispositions entered into the decisions as well.
[1:01:30 – 1:01:33] Adam: The more cautious masters kept their vessels off the lakes when the weather got rough.
[1:01:34 – 1:01:43] Adam: Others, known as heavy weather captains, supremely confident in their boat’s abilities, would not hesitate to go out when the winds were whipping up and the waves were building.
[1:01:45 – 1:01:52] Adam: The captains of the Daniel J. Morrell and the Edward Y. Townsend faced a rare, if not unique, situation when making their decisions to sail.
[1:01:53 – 1:02:03] Adam: Not only did they both work for the same company, but both boats were almost identical in their structure, destined for the same exact port, sailing in the same conditions on the same lake.
[1:02:03 – 1:02:06] Adam: It would have been very strange if one had sailed and the other stayed in.
[1:02:07 – 1:02:09] Adam: Both captains had considerable experience on the lakes.
[1:02:10 – 1:02:18] Adam: Captain Thomas Connelly had spent 27 of his 48 years on the lakes, while Arthur Crowley had been working on the water for two years longer.
[1:02:19 – 1:02:21] Adam: They were both well acquainted with Lake Huron.
[1:02:24 – 1:02:25] Erik: Heavy weather captains.
[1:02:25 – 1:02:29] Adam: They were both considered heavy weather captains, and they were just like, we’re going.
[1:02:30 – 1:02:31] Adam: But they also were ordered to go.
[1:02:32 – 1:02:39] Adam: I think this is interesting, too, in that they were sailing for Taconite Harbor, which is no longer a destination for our boats.
[1:02:40 – 1:02:41] Adam: and is located in Cook County.
[1:02:42 – 1:02:42] Erik: Yeah.
[1:02:43 – 1:02:47] Adam: It’s weird to think that Cook County used to have an actual big boat port.
[1:02:48 – 1:02:51] Erik: Yeah, when was that harbor even created?
[1:02:51 – 1:02:53] Erik: Clearly in that day and age.
[1:02:53 – 1:03:02] Adam: Yeah, I mean, it’s not much, but if you look at it on a satellite image, it’s as much of a port as Silver Bay is.
[1:03:02 – 1:03:06] Adam: I mean, it’s just basically a breakwater with a wall they pull up to, and then they got the chutes.
[1:03:06 – 1:03:11] Adam: And, yeah, they had a rail line going to it, and they would just fill them up, send them out.
[1:03:11 – 1:03:13] Adam: There’s not much there, you know.
[1:03:14 – 1:03:19] Adam: But I don’t know when it was built off the top of my head, and I don’t know when it, like, last was accepting big boat.
[1:03:20 – 1:03:21] Erik: It’s been a long time.
[1:03:21 – 1:03:24] Adam: Yeah, I mean, that plant shut down, the port shut down.
[1:03:24 – 1:03:30] Adam: I mean, I think there’s still like a small craft marina there that is active.
[1:03:30 – 1:03:32] Erik: Yeah, part of it started on fire this summer.
[1:03:32 – 1:03:32] Adam: No way.
[1:03:33 – 1:03:33] Adam: Yeah.
[1:03:33 – 1:03:34] Adam: I didn’t know that.
[1:03:34 – 1:03:35] Erik: There was a huge fire there.
[1:03:36 – 1:03:37] Erik: The factory?
[1:03:37 – 1:03:38] Adam: Or what were the old…
[1:03:38 – 1:03:54] Erik: Yeah, next time you drive by Taconite Harbor, just look real close and you can see all the old burnt up scraps and crumpled steel and horrible wastes that have been pushed up and they’re slowly cleaning it up.
[1:03:54 – 1:03:54] Erik: I feel like…
[1:03:55 – 1:04:14] Erik: I think it was, I don’t know how it started, but it was just like a, like maybe like a maintenance shed or one of like, it wasn’t like the main building, but like a pretty substantial size, like big metal shed adjacent to what you see when you drive by Taconite Harbor, just like started on fire and kind of like burned to the ground this summer.
[1:04:14 – 1:04:15] Adam: I guess I never really look over at it.
[1:04:16 – 1:04:17] Adam: I try and look away actually.
[1:04:18 – 1:04:18] Erik: It’s, yeah, it’s not.
[1:04:19 – 1:04:20] Erik: It’s kind of an eyesore.
[1:04:20 – 1:04:21] Erik: It is, yeah.
[1:04:21 – 1:04:26] Adam: But, yeah, it’s wild to think that they were heading here, you know.
[1:04:26 – 1:04:31] Adam: The Misha Pikatin kind of was like right out in front of Grand Marais when it had its trouble this summer.
[1:04:32 – 1:04:37] Adam: You know, the Fitzgerald kind of came in close, but I don’t know if people could have really seen it from here.
[1:04:37 – 1:04:39] Adam: But the North Shore, man.
[1:04:40 – 1:04:42] Adam: I do have a color picture for you.
[1:04:42 – 1:04:46] Adam: I don’t know why this one came through in color, but it’s just that classic ore boat red.
[1:04:46 – 1:04:47] Adam: It’s beautiful.
[1:04:47 – 1:04:48] Adam: The white pilot house.
[1:04:48 – 1:04:52] Erik: You can almost see it kind of starting to bend there a little bit, though.
[1:04:52 – 1:04:53] Erik: God, those things are long.
[1:04:53 – 1:04:54] Erik: And that’s not even the longest.
[1:04:54 – 1:04:56] Adam: It doesn’t seem like they should work.
[1:04:56 – 1:04:56] Adam: No.
[1:04:57 – 1:04:58] Adam: I don’t care what kind of steel you’re using.
[1:05:00 – 1:05:10] Adam: This photograph I just showed you was taken on November 25th in the St. Clair River, right north of Detroit there.
[1:05:10 – 1:05:11] Erik: The year it sank?
[1:05:11 – 1:05:12] Erik: No.
[1:05:12 – 1:05:15] Adam: The day before it sank was when this picture was taken.
[1:05:15 – 1:05:15] Erik: Wow.
[1:05:16 – 1:05:17] Adam: So, yeah, maybe it is bending a little.
[1:05:17 – 1:05:21] Adam: It was out on a pretty rough season on Lake Erie before it got to here.
[1:05:21 – 1:05:25] Erik: Just pumping out just space black soot.
[1:05:25 – 1:05:29] Adam: Yeah, they just picked up some fresh coal in Windsor, and they’re burning that coal, baby.
[1:05:29 – 1:05:30] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know.
[1:05:30 – 1:05:31] Erik: Maybe it was worse.
[1:05:32 – 1:05:32] Erik: Maybe it was better.
[1:05:32 – 1:05:33] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:05:33 – 1:05:34] Erik: I think it was probably worse.
[1:05:34 – 1:05:35] Erik: Just be comfortable.
[1:05:35 – 1:05:57] Adam: forecasting was though like by the time this picture was taken they knew they were going into a rough storm and like had the chance for like you know big seas um but you know as it said it’s like well they can’t they can’t just sit here they got to get this run in and be done for the season and both of them are going and they both they had sailed through something like this before so they felt pretty good about it
[1:05:59 – 1:06:03] Adam: Dennis Hale had rejoined the morale in Windsor when the ship stopped for 221 tons of coal.
[1:06:03 – 1:06:04] Adam: Big timers.
[1:06:09 – 1:06:16] Adam: The crew quarters on the Daniel Jamerrill, like those on most ore boats, were located near the crewmen’s workstations.
[1:06:16 – 1:06:19] Adam: The engine room and galley were located in the stern section of the boat.
[1:06:20 – 1:06:25] Adam: The engineers, oilers, firemen, coal passers, cooks, and porters had rooms in the aft housing.
[1:06:26 – 1:06:31] Adam: The forward quarters were occupied by the officers, wheelmen, watchmen, and deckhands.
[1:06:31 – 1:06:34] Adam: On this trip, Hale was lucky enough to have a cabin to himself.
[1:06:34 – 1:06:38] Adam: Sometimes I guess they had to share a cabin.
[1:06:39 – 1:06:42] Erik: I imagine that was… Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all, really.
[1:06:43 – 1:06:46] Erik: Besides the captain, I assume everybody’s just like… Well, here’s the thing.
[1:06:46 – 1:06:47] Adam: They did work like crazy.
[1:06:47 – 1:06:57] Adam: It just says here, like, crewmen worked two four-hour shifts per day, and they were just sort of rotating them, you know, so you’d be working 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., and then, you know, 4 p.m. to… Or whatever.
[1:06:57 – 1:07:02] Adam: 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., and then 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
[1:07:02 – 1:07:03] Adam: I really bungled that, but…
[1:07:03 – 1:07:08] Adam: They’re working a little four hour shifts, like four to eight and then nap and then four to eight again in the afternoon.
[1:07:08 – 1:07:09] Adam: Oh, okay.
[1:07:09 – 1:07:09] Erik: Yeah.
[1:07:10 – 1:07:13] Adam: So you’re just sort of always working rotating shifts, like short shifts though.
[1:07:13 – 1:07:13] Adam: Yeah.
[1:07:14 – 1:07:16] Adam: So I guess like if you’re sharing a bunk or whatever, like.
[1:07:17 – 1:07:18] Adam: You’re probably not sharing it.
[1:07:18 – 1:07:18] Adam: Right.
[1:07:18 – 1:07:20] Adam: You’re just in there when the other guy’s working, I guess.
[1:07:20 – 1:07:21] Adam: But I guess he has his own one.
[1:07:23 – 1:07:36] Adam: Ship left the dock from Windsor at 7.30 a.m. on November 28, 1966, and basically running closely together with the Townsend, they sailed north onto Lake Huron into the oncoming storm.
[1:07:37 – 1:07:41] Adam: I have a little note on the conditions as they entered Lake Huron.
[1:07:42 – 1:07:44] Adam: The weather deteriorated in the hours ahead.
[1:07:44 – 1:07:48] Adam: The waves, by Connolly’s estimation, were 12 feet at 10 o’clock.
[1:07:48 – 1:07:52] Adam: An hour and a half later, when he spoke to Crawley, they measured 8 feet.
[1:07:53 – 1:07:59] Adam: But now the waves were building and heavy winds exceeding 50 miles per hour and were coming at them from two directions at once.
[1:08:00 – 1:08:01] Adam: Blizzard snow fell all around them.
[1:08:02 – 1:08:06] Adam: The boats could barely move forward in the seas that seemed to be pushing them backwards.
[1:08:06 – 1:08:07] Adam: Both boats were rolling.
[1:08:08 – 1:08:12] Adam: Captains Crowley and Conley needed all their expertise just to keep their vessels on course.
[1:08:13 – 1:08:21] Adam: At 10 o’clock, when the two spoke over the radio phone, the Townsend was about 8 miles north of Harbor Beach, near the tip of the lower Michigan’s Thumb.
[1:08:22 – 1:08:25] Adam: The Morrell, somewhere about 15 miles north of her.
[1:08:26 – 1:08:29] Adam: The two men talked about weather and how worried they were about the storm.
[1:08:30 – 1:08:32] Adam: Not looking good, Captain.
[1:08:32 – 1:08:33] Adam: I agree, Captain.
[1:08:34 – 1:08:35] Adam: I agree.
[1:08:35 – 1:08:37] Adam: That was not an actual quote.
[1:08:37 – 1:08:40] Adam: I just made that part up, but that’s probably what it sounded like.
[1:08:40 – 1:08:42] Erik: Probably, pretty much, yeah.
[1:08:43 – 1:08:46] Adam: Before we move on, I’m going to open another beer, I think.
[1:08:46 – 1:08:47] Erik: All right.
[1:08:47 – 1:08:47] Erik: Sounds good.
[1:08:50 – 1:08:53] Adam: Dennis Hale was awakened from a sound sleep by a loud bang.
[1:08:54 – 1:08:59] Adam: which he initially shrugged off as the sound of an anchor pounding off the boat’s bow in the storm.
[1:09:00 – 1:09:02] Adam: He rolled over, hoping to resume his sleep.
[1:09:03 – 1:09:08] Adam: A second loud bang was accompanied by the sound of his books falling off their shelf in a sudden avalanche.
[1:09:09 – 1:09:11] Adam: Hale reached for his light, but it didn’t work.
[1:09:12 – 1:09:16] Adam: He yanked his curtain aside and sat up, just as the morale’s general alarm sounded.
[1:09:17 – 1:09:22] Adam: Hale jumped to his feet and groped around in the darkness, for the lifejacket stowed on the rack above his bed.
[1:09:22 – 1:09:27] Adam: He slipped it on and, clad only in his boxer shorts, headed out of his cabin.
[1:09:28 – 1:09:33] Adam: In the darkened causeway, he ran into Al Hulme, a 51-year-old deck watch.
[1:09:33 – 1:09:37] Adam: They rushed together to the opening to the spar deck.
[1:09:37 – 1:09:38] Adam: Hulme in the lead.
[1:09:38 – 1:09:40] Adam: “‘Oh my God!’
[1:09:40 – 1:09:42] Adam: he shouted when he saw the cause for the alarm.
[1:09:43 – 1:09:45] Adam: He turned around and sprinted back in the direction of his room.
[1:09:46 – 1:09:47] Adam: He would be needing a life jacket.”
[1:09:48 – 1:09:56] Adam: Hale was similarly astonished when he stepped onto the spar deck and looked back towards the stern of the morel, or what should have been the back of the boat.
[1:09:57 – 1:10:06] Adam: The massive deck of the morel, with its 18 cargo hatches, was longer than a football field, and behind the deck was the afterhousing with its distinct black smokestack.
[1:10:07 – 1:10:14] Adam: From where he stood, Hale could not see the back half of the morel.
[1:10:15 – 1:10:17] Adam: Even the smokestack had disappeared.
[1:10:17 – 1:10:20] Adam: After a few seconds, the stern section rose into view.
[1:10:21 – 1:10:27] Adam: Unlike the bow portion, which was totally dark, the stern, including running lights, was still under complete power.
[1:10:27 – 1:10:31] Adam: The boat, Hale realized, had cracked at the keel and was breaking apart.
[1:10:31 – 1:10:32] Adam: I have an illustration for you.
[1:10:35 – 1:10:39] Adam: Black and white illustration of it just split in two.
[1:10:41 – 1:10:44] Adam: This is an illustration by Robert McGreevey.
[1:10:45 – 1:10:45] Adam: There you go.
[1:10:46 – 1:10:47] Adam: University of Wisconsin-Superior.
[1:10:49 – 1:10:58] Erik: Maybe that’s why they don’t build them like that anymore, so you don’t get any more of the ghost ship situations where the front just kind of keeps putting along and the back half just sinks.
[1:10:59 – 1:11:01] Adam: It’s kind of the opposite here, actually.
[1:11:03 – 1:11:07] Adam: Because the back half still had the power, but the front half was just cut off and dead.
[1:11:09 – 1:11:09] Adam: Spooky.
[1:11:10 – 1:11:13] Erik: How did the back half keep moving without…
[1:11:13 – 1:11:16] Adam: The engines in the back and the screws back there.
[1:11:16 – 1:11:32] Erik: Well, sure, but it doesn’t seem like physics should allow for an open-fronted half of a ship to just keep plunging forward or doing whatever, even if it does have power.
[1:11:32 – 1:11:33] Adam: It’s freaky.
[1:11:33 – 1:11:35] Erik: It doesn’t seem like it has the aerodynamics…
[1:11:35 – 1:11:37] Adam: No, it should just go straight to the bottom.
[1:11:37 – 1:11:38] Adam: Yeah.
[1:11:38 – 1:11:39] Adam: It did not.
[1:11:39 – 1:11:40] Erik: Oh, God.
[1:11:41 – 1:11:47] Adam: The storm raged on, and with no sign of letting up, gigantic waves sent spray and water over the morel’s rails.
[1:11:48 – 1:11:52] Adam: The wind created a cacophony of deafening sounds, and snow had turned to slush on the boat’s deck.
[1:11:54 – 1:11:56] Adam: She’d broken two from the bottom up, Hale would remember.
[1:11:57 – 1:12:02] Adam: I could hear tearing metal, steam escaping, the wind in the wires, the engine laboring.
[1:12:03 – 1:12:05] Adam: She tore real slow like a piece of paper.
[1:12:06 – 1:12:07] Adam: I could see sparks flying from it.
[1:12:09 – 1:12:11] Adam: Hale hurried back to his cabin.
[1:12:11 – 1:12:15] Adam: He needed more clothing if he expected to have a chance of surviving after the morale sank.
[1:12:15 – 1:12:20] Adam: But in the blackness and his sense of urgency, he couldn’t locate his clothes.
[1:12:20 – 1:12:23] Adam: He found his heavy peacoat and pulled it over his life jacket.
[1:12:23 – 1:12:24] Adam: This would have to do.
[1:12:25 – 1:12:28] Adam: For all he knew, the freighter would slip beneath the waves before he reached the life raft.
[1:12:30 – 1:12:33] Adam: The Morrell’s forward raft was located between the third and fourth hatches.
[1:12:34 – 1:12:40] Adam: Men were now gathering on it or standing nearby, some tying themselves to the raft so they wouldn’t be swept overboard by the waves.
[1:12:41 – 1:12:50] Adam: The pontoon-style raft, constructed with a deck of two-by-fours mounted on large metal barrels, was set up to float free when the vessel sank.
[1:12:51 – 1:13:00] Adam: It supposedly held 15 men, though it was difficult to imagine that many sailors fitting in the limited deck space for any extended period of time.
[1:13:01 – 1:13:10] Adam: Only minutes had passed since the initial sounding of the general alarm, yet in that time almost all of the officers and crew from the forward section of the morale had made their way to the raft.
[1:13:11 – 1:13:12] Adam: No one panicked.
[1:13:12 – 1:13:17] Adam: If anything, the crewmen were remarkably calm, transfixed by what they were observing in the middle of the boat.
[1:13:18 – 1:13:27] Adam: Huge waves rolling under the morel lifted the breaking center portion of the boat high in the air, tearing it further before slamming it back down when a wave passed.
[1:13:28 – 1:13:30] Adam: Rivets popped from the twisting and tearing.
[1:13:30 – 1:13:32] Adam: The friction sent sparks into the night.
[1:13:33 – 1:13:36] Adam: The noise from the boat in the storm was ear-shattering.
[1:13:37 – 1:13:56] Adam: incredibly no one at the back of the boat seemed to be aware of what was happening with the engine running as normal the stern was still under full power the general alarm cut off when the wiring was severed from the morel began to break up was not sounding the two lifeboats sat unattended on their davids davids
[1:13:57 – 1:14:03] Adam: To those aboard the life raft, the splitting of the morale seemed to take forever, though she actually broke apart in a few minutes.
[1:14:04 – 1:14:12] Adam: Captain Crowley, among those seated on the raft, informed the others that the pilot house had lost power before anyone could transmit an SOS.
[1:14:13 – 1:14:16] Adam: He was only able to set off the general alarm by battery.
[1:14:17 – 1:14:23] Adam: The morale, he confessed, should not have been out in this storm, which turned out to be much worse than anticipated.
[1:14:26 – 1:14:34] Erik: And the images, the imagery that you painted of like the middle of the boat kind of like coming up with the waves and like crashing back down.
[1:14:34 – 1:14:38] Adam: So, yeah, it was sort of like he said, tore real slow like paper.
[1:14:39 – 1:14:39] Adam: Yeah.
[1:14:40 – 1:14:44] Adam: And like just watching it spark and twist and making a horrible noise as it went.
[1:14:44 – 1:14:49] Adam: But, yeah, in reality, it probably did only take a few minutes for it to fully come apart.
[1:14:49 – 1:14:49] Adam: But.
[1:14:50 – 1:14:57] Adam: As we’ll see in part two of this series, the front half had lost all power and did sink rather quickly.
[1:14:58 – 1:15:02] Adam: The back half, for whatever reason, nobody seemed to know it was even sinking back there.
[1:15:02 – 1:15:07] Adam: They’re all playing euchre down in the engine room.
[1:15:08 – 1:15:09] Adam: I don’t know how they didn’t hear it.
[1:15:09 – 1:15:13] Adam: I’m assuming they did know what was happening and could really do nothing about it.
[1:15:13 – 1:15:17] Adam: The life raft situation on these boats sounded horrible.
[1:15:17 – 1:15:23] Erik: Yeah, that sounds like a pontoon situation I fashioned together with a bunch of my college buddies.
[1:15:23 – 1:15:26] Adam: This sounds like a raft you’d see on any lake up here.
[1:15:26 – 1:15:27] Adam: Yeah.
[1:15:27 – 1:15:33] Adam: Get 15 guys on that as a ship is sinking and hang on in 25-foot seas in a blizzard.
[1:15:35 – 1:15:36] Erik: Yuck.
[1:15:36 – 1:15:39] Erik: What…
[1:15:40 – 1:15:45] Erik: I mean, how much of the book and the information…
[1:15:47 – 1:15:58] Erik: that you have between this ship sinking and the Edmund Fitzgerald is strictly based on the fact that there was an eyewitness survivor.
[1:15:59 – 1:16:13] Adam: Yeah, because I read both books back-to-back, and in this one, somebody survived, and so they were able to figure out what had actually happened a lot sooner, and they were able to more definitively say, like, this is what happened.
[1:16:14 – 1:16:14] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:14 – 1:16:20] Adam: Whereas with the Fitzgerald, because nobody actually survived, they really will never know what actually happened.
[1:16:21 – 1:16:23] Adam: They can make some pretty educated guesses.
[1:16:23 – 1:16:23] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:24 – 1:16:35] Adam: The Fitzgerald is in like 550 plus feet of water, whereas the Morrell is sunk in quite a bit shallower water, which made the wreck site more accessible.
[1:16:37 – 1:16:39] Adam: But as you’ll see, that’s still…
[1:16:39 – 1:16:42] Adam: It still took them a while to figure that, to get to it all.
[1:16:43 – 1:16:44] Adam: Yeah.
[1:16:44 – 1:16:49] Adam: This was in two pieces, whereas the Fitzgerald is in two pieces directly next to each other and was found pretty quickly.
[1:16:49 – 1:16:53] Adam: This one, the two pieces ended up wildly far apart.
[1:16:53 – 1:16:53] Adam: Nice.
[1:16:53 – 1:16:54] Adam: Not nice, but crazy.
[1:16:55 – 1:17:07] Adam: The stern section just kept going and didn’t sink for a while with their lights on, which is always the freakiest part of the Schumacher Mighty Fitz book was when he describes the boat slamming into the bottom of the lake.
[1:17:08 – 1:17:25] Adam: 500 feet below them with all the like running lights still on the depths of the water like picturing the the front half of this boat and like no lights on it just sinking rapidly while their crew watch it go down and then just seeing the the back half like with all the lights still on just chugging away into heading north and
[1:17:26 – 1:17:48] Adam: yeah we’re going to sue we’re going to the sulox yeah and uh they just watched it like steam off away from them and like they would have it got far enough away and for those guys that were on the raft like it would have just disappeared into the storm like still going as if it was going to go to sulox like crazy but um
[1:17:51 – 1:18:00] Adam: Yeah, I mean, having Dennis Hale live to tell the tale certainly made it a lot easier for the investigation.
[1:18:00 – 1:18:05] Adam: That said, like, half this book is just the Coast Guard investigation report in full.
[1:18:05 – 1:18:06] Adam: Okay.
[1:18:06 – 1:18:09] Adam: So you can read the excruciating detail.
[1:18:10 – 1:18:12] Adam: You know, Schumacher does a really nice job of just, like,
[1:18:13 – 1:18:17] Adam: Pulling out the most important parts and making it an easier narrative.
[1:18:17 – 1:18:26] Erik: Yeah, I just wonder how much more difficult it would have been in retrospect to try and piece together what happened here if there wasn’t a eyewitness survivor.
[1:18:27 – 1:18:30] Erik: Where it’s like, yeah, this boat clearly did go down, but like…
[1:18:31 – 1:18:40] Erik: One piece went down here and this other one, but maybe it would have been more obvious because it was so wildly like.
[1:18:40 – 1:18:49] Adam: I mean, and other, as you’ll see, they had other evidence, not just on this boat, but on the Townsend, its sister ship.
[1:18:49 – 1:18:52] Adam: They could examine that boat as well.
[1:18:53 – 1:19:01] Adam: And they also had the Carl D. Bradley, which did split up and sink in a very similar fashion in, you know, 58 or 57, I want to say.
[1:19:02 – 1:19:04] Adam: So that had been in recent memory, too.
[1:19:04 – 1:19:11] Adam: So the weird thing is with the Fitzgerald, because the Arthur Anderson was right behind him and like in contact with him.
[1:19:12 – 1:19:16] Adam: I mean, the Townsend and the Morrell were talking too, but they weren’t in eyesight of each other.
[1:19:16 – 1:19:17] Adam: They were farther apart.
[1:19:18 – 1:19:21] Adam: So they were only talking by radio, and they were only checking in every once in a while.
[1:19:22 – 1:19:25] Adam: There’s never any point where they’re like, my fence rail’s down.
[1:19:25 – 1:19:26] Adam: I’m taking on water.
[1:19:26 – 1:19:27] Adam: I got a list.
[1:19:27 – 1:19:28] Adam: They were just like, this sucks.
[1:19:28 – 1:19:29] Adam: We’re going to make it.
[1:19:29 – 1:19:31] Adam: How are you doing?
[1:19:31 – 1:19:32] Adam: This still sucks.
[1:19:32 – 1:19:34] Adam: We’ll see you at the Sulox.
[1:19:34 – 1:19:35] Erik: And then all of a sudden it was gone.
[1:19:35 – 1:19:37] Adam: And it was just like, they’re gone.
[1:19:37 – 1:19:38] Adam: They never got an SOS off.
[1:19:39 – 1:19:44] Adam: And so, like, while the Fitzgerald went down, like, they knew pretty quickly it was missing.
[1:19:44 – 1:19:50] Adam: And, like, other boats, Bernie Cooper on the Anderson, like, sounded the alarm immediately for the Coast Guard.
[1:19:51 – 1:19:56] Adam: And there’s still not a whole lot they ever could have done about it, even if that boat had stayed on the surface for a while.
[1:19:57 – 1:20:02] Adam: Or if they had even found, you know, survivors that night because the storm was so rough, but…
[1:20:03 – 1:20:10] Adam: With this one, no SOF went off, and you’ll see, too, they didn’t have the same protocols, and nobody was near them near them.
[1:20:11 – 1:20:11] Adam: Right.
[1:20:12 – 1:20:16] Adam: So it was a while before they were like, hey, I think this one sunk, guys.
[1:20:16 – 1:20:16] Adam: Yeah.
[1:20:16 – 1:20:28] Adam: Which you’ll see, it made it even more amazing that Dennis Hale survived, because for days, they didn’t even know they were missing, and he’s just floating around there in his boxers on a raft.
[1:20:28 – 1:20:30] Erik: Did it sink during the daytime?
[1:20:30 – 1:20:30] Erik: No.
[1:20:30 – 1:20:31] Adam: It was in the middle of the night.
[1:20:31 – 1:20:31] Adam: Okay.
[1:20:31 – 1:20:32] Adam: Yeah.
[1:20:32 – 1:20:32] Adam: Yeah.
[1:20:32 – 1:20:37] Adam: Uh, the, hence the, they could, all the running lights, they could watch them go off in the distance.
[1:20:37 – 1:20:37] Adam: Yeah.
[1:20:37 – 1:20:38] Adam: It was like 1am.
[1:20:38 – 1:20:38] Erik: Yeah.
[1:20:39 – 1:20:39] Adam: When I went down.
[1:20:39 – 1:20:46] Adam: So worst possible time to go down, I don’t know, maybe, you know, earlier in the night, then they would have a longer wait for sunrise.
[1:20:46 – 1:20:46] Adam: But,
[1:20:46 – 1:20:46] Erik: I guess.
[1:20:46 – 1:20:47] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:20:47 – 1:20:49] Erik: There’s not really a good time to go down, but yeah.
[1:20:49 – 1:20:51] Adam: Not a ton of daylight on the 26th of November.
[1:20:51 – 1:21:01] Adam: And yeah, it sounds like they were in a storm of the same caliber as what took down the Fitzgerald, the famous storm in 1913.
[1:21:01 – 1:21:04] Adam: Yeah, awful conditions.
[1:21:04 – 1:21:11] Adam: They were just in the worst possible spot on the lake at the worst possible time, which is exactly what happened to the Fitzgerald.
[1:21:11 – 1:21:12] Erik: Yeah.
[1:21:12 – 1:21:16] Erik: Was there any comparison to the Fitzgerald storm in terms of like.
[1:21:16 – 1:21:20] Adam: I never got any good information on like the barometer on this one.
[1:21:20 – 1:21:25] Erik: Just a little too early in the meteorological measuring and historical data for that maybe.
[1:21:25 – 1:21:30] Adam: Yeah, they didn’t have, like, a ton of, like, very precise data on the storm itself.
[1:21:30 – 1:21:41] Adam: It was just basically, like, we had reports of 25-foot seas so far, waves and wind coming from multiple directions that made it, like, hard to even stay on course.
[1:21:41 – 1:21:41] Adam: Yeah.
[1:21:42 – 1:21:45] Adam: And, yeah, just generally, like, you can’t turn around in this stuff.
[1:21:45 – 1:21:47] Adam: You just got to keep going forward and hope you make it.
[1:21:47 – 1:21:47] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[1:21:47 – 1:21:49] Erik: Yeah, you can’t just, well, let’s just go back.
[1:21:50 – 1:21:59] Adam: But, yeah, I think they didn’t have nearly as much information as what McSorley got in 75, and that was only nine years later.
[1:21:59 – 1:22:06] Adam: They had much better reporting at that point, and McSorley knew way more about how bad the storm was going to be compared to what these guys were given.
[1:22:07 – 1:22:08] Adam: They were just like, ah, it’s going to be bad.
[1:22:08 – 1:22:09] Adam: Good luck.
[1:22:09 – 1:22:11] Erik: Yeah, well, it was a difference, though.
[1:22:14 – 1:22:16] Erik: Fitzgerald was a tailwind, though, right?
[1:22:17 – 1:22:45] Adam: correct it was a quartering tailwind um by the time it sunk um but they had the the low pressure system had passed in front of it and to the north and then so the wind was wrapping around behind it and yeah it was hitting them from behind and like the i don’t ever know port and starboard whoever the right side is yeah starboard yeah it was my guess but the morel was going straight into the morel was basically busting straight into a headwind yeah um but then when they got out in front of the thumb
[1:22:46 – 1:23:08] Adam: there’s also like wind coming from the west as well so they’re getting like they’re getting big seas from multiple directions which was giving them a lot of trouble yeah twisting and also like putting a lot of pressure on the whole of the ship yeah bending that old paper clip the paper clip just snapped buddy and uh yeah it wasn’t good so uh yeah incredible that he survived um
[1:23:09 – 1:23:31] Adam: i can’t wait to hear more about his uh tale of survival why did yeah like that he damn near missed the boat and still got back on it and then you know then it sinks and then he still survives um he’s incredible i mean he lived a long life he’s dennis hale is no longer with us but um he lived a long life after surviving and uh
[1:23:32 – 1:23:37] Adam: You know, basically there’s more on like what he did after the wreck in part two as well.
[1:23:37 – 1:23:43] Adam: And we will end this story with Dennis Hale as we began it in part two.
[1:23:43 – 1:23:46] Adam: So that’s a good place to leave it for now.
[1:23:47 – 1:23:48] Adam: I got to clean these whitefish.
[1:23:48 – 1:23:50] Adam: So we’re going to have to end this episode.
[1:23:50 – 1:23:54] Adam: But thank you to the mystery sponsor for these tap shacks.
[1:23:55 – 1:23:56] Adam: Zippy tap shacks.
[1:23:57 – 1:23:58] Adam: From Earth Rider.
[1:23:58 – 1:24:00] Adam: Everybody’s zipping around except for that lady.
[1:24:00 – 1:24:02] Adam: She’s lounging real nice.
[1:24:03 – 1:24:05] Adam: I think she’s reading a Michael Schumacher book.
[1:24:05 – 1:24:05] Erik: Yep.
[1:24:05 – 1:24:07] Erik: Brittle Steel.
[1:24:07 – 1:24:08] Erik: Brittle Steel.
[1:24:09 – 1:24:10] Adam: The Kamloops disaster.
[1:24:11 – 1:24:12] Erik: Oh, God.
[1:24:12 – 1:24:14] Adam: There’s so many other shipwreck disasters.
[1:24:15 – 1:24:16] Adam: I can’t help myself in November.
[1:24:16 – 1:24:21] Adam: I get in my shipwreck era, and I just want to read shipwreck books and watch shipwreck YouTube like crazy.
[1:24:21 – 1:24:21] Adam: Yeah.
[1:24:22 – 1:24:23] Adam: Astonishing Tales of the Sea.
[1:24:23 – 1:24:24] Adam: I don’t know.
[1:24:24 – 1:24:25] Adam: I’m sick like that.
[1:24:25 – 1:24:32] Erik: Are you more interested in the astonishing wrecks of the sea or the fluttering breakages of the sky?
[1:24:34 – 1:24:35] Adam: They’re both interesting.
[1:24:35 – 1:24:38] Adam: But in November, I want the sea wrecks.
[1:24:38 – 1:24:39] Adam: Yeah.
[1:24:40 – 1:24:46] Adam: Later in the winter when icing conditions are worse in the sky, then I want the air wreck.
[1:24:46 – 1:24:46] Adam: Yeah.
[1:24:47 – 1:24:48] Erik: Yeah, I kind of feel the same way.
[1:24:48 – 1:24:49] Erik: It is the season.
[1:24:49 – 1:24:50] Erik: It’s…
[1:24:52 – 1:24:59] Adam: And we generally get to see more big boats on the North Shore this time of year because they are now more cautious than ever, it seems like.
[1:24:59 – 1:25:00] Erik: It definitely piques the interest.
[1:25:00 – 1:25:03] Erik: It kind of makes it a little bit more real.
[1:25:03 – 1:25:07] Erik: It didn’t exist in a weird vacuum.
[1:25:07 – 1:25:10] Erik: You can clearly see this industry still exists.
[1:25:10 – 1:25:12] Erik: It’s still out there happening.
[1:25:12 – 1:25:12] Erik: Yeah.
[1:25:12 – 1:25:19] Adam: Yeah, they may not be coming to Taconite Harbor anymore, but they’re still running iron ore up and down the lake.
[1:25:19 – 1:25:21] Adam: And we do get to see these boats still.
[1:25:21 – 1:25:30] Adam: It’s really fascinating, the difference between this Min 2 hanging in the shed with us and then a boat of that magnitude.
[1:25:31 – 1:25:32] Adam: It’s just incredible.
[1:25:32 – 1:25:32] Erik: Yeah.
[1:25:33 – 1:26:01] Adam: um you know when my brother was up here where he was like do you think they’re as big as like the battleships like the old world war ii battleships and they are much longer but the battleships are wider well i’m sure much wider yeah and have bigger guns yeah but i mean still i mean these are huge boats even by like ocean going boat standards i mean it’s incredible that every once in a while you just get to see one go by grand marais um real close in and you’re just like neat it’s so neat like how big these things and
[1:26:02 – 1:26:10] Adam: They look big when they’re way out there, but if you ever get down to the Twin Ports and watch one of them actually go under the lift bridge… That’s an experience.
[1:26:10 – 1:26:11] Adam: It is.
[1:26:11 – 1:26:11] Adam: Absolutely.
[1:26:11 – 1:26:12] Adam: Highly recommend it.
[1:26:13 – 1:26:19] Adam: If you can get anywhere that you’re going to be near one of these big boats like that when they’re coming into port, go check them out.
[1:26:19 – 1:26:22] Adam: These things are incredible, like marvels of engineering.
[1:26:22 – 1:26:22] Erik: Yeah, it’s…
[1:26:23 – 1:26:23] Erik: I mean…
[1:26:24 – 1:26:28] Erik: They’re like exactly like you said, when you see them out in the water, they look huge.
[1:26:29 – 1:26:36] Erik: But then when you get down to the Duluth Harbor, and again, like you can find a resource anywhere online to see what the schedule is.
[1:26:36 – 1:26:37] Erik: Yeah.
[1:26:37 – 1:26:43] Erik: Even if you’re passing through and there’s a boat that you’re within striking distance of, just go down there.
[1:26:43 – 1:26:45] Erik: It’s insane to watch one of those things roll through.
[1:26:45 – 1:26:54] Erik: It’s otherworldly when you’re like 20 yards away when it goes through the actual little slip under the lift bridge there.
[1:26:54 – 1:26:56] Erik: Yeah.
[1:26:56 – 1:26:58] Erik: You can hear it when it goes by there.
[1:26:58 – 1:26:58] Adam: Yeah.
[1:26:58 – 1:26:59] Adam: It vibrates your heart.
[1:26:59 – 1:27:00] Erik: Yeah.
[1:27:00 – 1:27:01] Erik: It’s worth it.
[1:27:01 – 1:27:03] Erik: It’s a wild experience.
[1:27:03 – 1:27:06] Erik: You got to just listen to the boat in your heart, mister.
[1:27:07 – 1:27:07] Erik: Yeah.
[1:27:07 – 1:27:17] Erik: There is something about the crazy engineering behind it all, the hubris of man almost to a certain extent to be like, how much bigger can we make it?
[1:27:18 – 1:27:34] Adam: If anybody out there is listening and can get us on one of these boats, I would be ever indebted and grateful because I so badly want to get on one of these just for one trip down the lake.
[1:27:34 – 1:27:38] Adam: I’ve been so close to them, and I’m sure there’s a lot of people that feel this way.
[1:27:38 – 1:27:39] Adam: I’m not special, but…
[1:27:40 – 1:27:45] Adam: Boy, it would be really neat to be able to just, like, take a ride on one of these things and actually, like, see it in action.
[1:27:46 – 1:27:53] Adam: I’d love to just be on one when it was being loaded or unloaded or going in on a port or, like, when you’re out in the middle.
[1:27:55 – 1:27:57] Adam: Just going through the suit locks on one of these.
[1:27:57 – 1:27:58] Adam: It would be incredible, so…
[1:27:58 – 1:27:59] Adam: Yeah, well, I feel like we…
[1:27:59 – 1:28:01] Adam: Someday my dream may come true.
[1:28:01 – 1:28:06] Adam: I understand it probably will not, but I appreciate that the Tumble Homies have listened this far.
[1:28:07 – 1:28:17] Adam: Thank you for listening to this episode and going along for us on this ride that once in a while we have to take on Tumble Home.
[1:28:17 – 1:28:22] Adam: which we explore the biggest boats of canoe country because Lake Superior is part of canoe country.
[1:28:23 – 1:28:26] Adam: And these are the modern boats of Lake Superior.
[1:28:26 – 1:28:30] Adam: And I find them to be fascinating and ever interesting.
[1:28:30 – 1:28:36] Adam: And sometimes you got to look at like when they go really wrong to really appreciate the majesty of when they go really right.
[1:28:39 – 1:28:39] Erik: Yeah.
[1:28:39 – 1:28:39] Erik: Well said.
[1:28:40 – 1:28:40] Erik: All right.
[1:28:40 – 1:28:41] Adam: Thank you.
[1:28:42 – 1:28:43] Adam: As we always say in Tumble Home,
[1:28:44 – 1:28:45] Adam: Happy netting.
[1:28:45 – 1:28:46] Adam: Happy paddling.
[1:28:47 – 1:28:49] Adam: Life is precious, and every day is a miracle.
[1:28:50 – 1:28:52] Adam: Arrivederci, Eric, and good night.