An Estonian videographer has done a 3D video of the sunken Great Lakes freighter, whose lore lives on to this day.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sunk in November of 1975, costing the lives of 29 merchant sailors. The placement of the wreck on the bottom of Lake Superior has been mapped out and documented by several deep water explorers.

Using the basic layout of the ship on the bottom of the lake, and Estonian YouTuber Lucas Gustaffson who goes by the online name CaljuCotcas, was able to piece together a 360 degree video of the ship, eerily placed in a golden hour sunset on what appears to be a Lake Superior beach.

While one side of me is creeped out by the video, another side of me is more than intrigued by how the ship finally landed on the bottom. I've seen similar diagrams and drawings, but this is a whole other level, especially the detail that the rear of the ship, or the stern, had flipped on the way down.

Gustaffson is very respectful to the history of the great ship, writing in his description:

When launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes, and she remains the largest to have sunk there. She was located in deep water on November 14, 1975, by a U.S. Navy aircraft detecting magnetic anomalies, and found soon afterwards to be in two large pieces.

 

Edmund Fitzgerald previously reported being in significant difficulty to Arthur M. Anderson: "I have a bad list, lost both radars. And am taking heavy seas over the deck. One of the worst seas I've ever been in." However, no distress signals were sent before she sank; Captain McSorley's last (7:10 P.M.) message to Arthur M. Anderson was, "We are holding our own." Her crew of 29 perished, and no bodies were recovered. The exact cause of the sinking remains unknown, though many books, studies, and expeditions have examined it. Edmund Fitzgerald may have been swamped, suffered structural failure or topside damage, experienced shoaling, or suffered from a combination of these.

 

The disaster is one of the best-known in the history of Great Lakes shipping. Gordon Lightfoot made it the subject of his 1976 hit song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" after reading an article, "The Cruelest Month", in the November 24, 1975, issue of Newsweek. The sinking led to changes in Great Lakes shipping regulations and practices that included mandatory survival suits, depth finders, positioning systems, increased freeboard, and more frequent inspection of vessels.

It's worth the click through to the YouTube page to read the strange debate over the remains of the ship.

 

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