The Edmond Fitzgerald

The Edmond Fitzgerald was a tanker bold, twenty five thousand tons of cargo, she held in her hole. A crew of twenty seven sailors, a captain and a mate sailed the stormy waters of a Michigan Great Lake. She cruised out under a clear blue sky: they stood on the decks as the waves slipped by. They saw the sea birds turn away and saw the flags flutter and the tackle swing and sway. Sailing in the haze of the coming night, dropped her tug at the last buoy light, trimmed her speed and headed for the south, took the wind on her bow and a bone in her mouth. Her radio was warning danger when came the first morn, from out of the northern waters roared a winter storm. The first of the season with rain and thunder, with her hole full of cargo, she threatened to go under. Fearful was the squall that struck her straight away and bowed her down to her waterway. She rose and fell on foamy swells that swept her deck clean in a roaring hell. The sailors below and no time to dress, she clashed and clanged In her tangled distress. She wallowed and floundered in a deadly death roll and broke apart at the number six hole. It took only minutes for the storm to take her down; not a trace of her passing was ever to be found. The Edmond Fitzgerald was never to be seen again, a testament to the power of a Lake Superior wind.