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Edmund Fitzgerald

Date 9-6-06

The ship was 729 feet long, 75 feet wide, 39 feet deep. She was the largest Great Lakes steamer when launched in 1958, its size limited only by the largest lock on Sault St, Marie.
The wreckage is in two major pieces. The bow section is 276 feet long and upright. The stern section is 253 feet long and upside down. The sections are 170 feet apart. About 200 feet of the midsection is disintegrated. Although there is now conclusive evidence pointing to what the cause was, the most popular therory is that because the Fitz was taking on water, The Fitz plunged, striking the lake's floor.
Its large cargo hold loaded through twenty-one water-tight hatches, each measuring 11' by 48' of 5/16" steel.
The FITZGERALD was carrying about 26,116 long tons of National Taconite Pellets. Taconite pellets are manufactured by a process known as "oxide pelletizing.Taconite pellets weight from 127 to 140 pounds per cubic foot, will absorb approximately 8 to 9 pounds (6 to 7 percent by weight) water per cubic foot, can contain up to 27.5 pounds of water in the interstitial void spaces in each cubic foot of pellets, and exhibit an angle of repose (the angle between the horizontal and the slope of a freestanding pile of the material) of approximately 260 either wet or dry.

Note:
The shipping industry standard for shipments of coal is the net ton (2,000 lbs or 907.2 kgs). Other bulk commodities use the gross ton (2,240 lbs / 1,016 kgs) or metric tonne (1,000 kgs / 2,204.6 lbs). All tonnage figures used here are the gross ton unless otherwise noted.

Round to decimal points. (S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald).

Fitz Circle Construction
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Fitz Sphere Construction
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Fitz Cylinder Construction
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Fitz Cone Construction
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There were 21 cargo hatch openings. Each opening measured 11 feet longitudinally and 48 feet transversely and had a 24-inch coaming above the weather deck. Each opening was made weathertight by a single-piece steel hatch cover. The hatch covers were made of 5/16-inch stiffened plate with a 9/16-inch rubber gasket around the underside of the plate’s perimeter. Each hatch cover was secured by 68 manually operated "Kestner" clamps arranged on 2-foot centers. Each clamp had an adjustment bolt which determined the force applied by the individual clamp and therefore controlled the deflection of the hatch cover, the compression of the rubber gasket, and the weathertightness of the hatch opening. There were no written procedures concerning maintenance or adjustment of the hatch clamps or gaskets. An electrically operated hatch cover crane which ran on rails outboard of the cargo hatch openings was used for lifting the hatch covers.

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