Imagine you’re on the 60-year-old SS Daniel J. Morrell. It’s dark early morning on the Great Lakes. The wind is blowing nearly 70 mph, the waves are reaching 20 to 25 feet, and your ship is breaking apart beneath your feet. You somehow make it onto a life raft. Cold, soaked, exhausted, and alone in the darkness, you suddenly see lights in the distance. Relief washes over you. A ship is coming to rescue you. You’re going to live!
Then the unthinkable happens.
You realize those lights aren’t on a rescue ship at all. They’re on the bow of the Daniel J. Morrell, the very ship that had just sunk beneath your feet! The ship had broken in two, and the bow was still steaming toward you through the darkness. It sounds like something from a horror movie, but it really happened. That is exactly what the lone survivor experienced.
I’m very wary of these kinds of ships. The Edmund Fitzgerald, the MV Derbyshire, the SS Carl D. Bradley, and the rest of these long and narrow cargo ships. Now, I’m not an engineer or anywhere near it, but they look so unnatural. In calm seas, they are fine, but when a storm comes up, they are punished severely for being so long and narrow, and many have broken in two. They also have many cargo holds, and if they aren’t completely sealed, water can come in and start weighing the ship down. But I must also say, to be fair, that some of those ships have operated for over 60 – 100 years! So, who am I to question?
The SS Daniel J. Morrell was one of the most respected ships on the Great Lakes. Built in 1906, she was considered a modern vessel for her time and spent decades hauling bulk cargo across the lakes. At 603 feet long, she was among the largest ships on the Great Lakes when launched. Crews regarded her as a strong ship, and she earned the nickname The Queen of the Lakes. By the 1960s, however, she was showing her age. Like many older lake freighters, she continued working long after newer ships had appeared.
On November 29, 1966, the Morrell was caught in a powerful storm on Lake Huron. During the night, the ship began to experience severe stress from the waves. Then the unthinkable happened. The vessel broke in two. The bow section separated from the stern and continued moving through the darkness. The crew had almost no warning. Men scrambled to launch life rafts and lifeboats into freezing conditions that offered little chance of survival.
Only one man survived, crewman Dennis Hale. After escaping onto a life raft, he spent hours exposed to the cold while watching one of the strangest and most disturbing sights imaginable. In the darkness, he saw what appeared to be a ship approaching. For a moment, he thought rescue had arrived. Then he realized the terrible truth. The vessel moving toward him was not a rescue ship at all. It was the bow section of the Daniel J. Morrell, still floating and moving on its own after breaking away from the rest of the ship. Few survivors in maritime history have experienced a more haunting moment.
By the time rescuers arrived, Hale was the only member of the 29-man crew left alive. Investigators later determined that age, metal fatigue, and the tremendous forces of the storm had contributed to the breakup. The disaster shocked Great Lakes shipping and raised concerns about the condition of older freighters still in service. It also foreshadowed later losses such as the SS Edmund Fitzgerald. The image most people remember, however, is not the investigation or the wreck itself. It is Dennis Hale alone on a raft in the darkness, believing help was finally coming, only to discover he was looking at the broken remains of his own ship steaming toward him.
Reader halffastcyclingclub added this in a comment. Years later, Dennis Hale wrote about more than just his physical survival. While alone on the raft, he said he saw dead shipmates and was visited by a stranger who warned him not to eat the ice from his coat because it would lower his body temperature even further. Shortly after his rescue, Hale told a priest about these experiences but was discouraged from speaking about them again. For years he largely kept that part of the story to himself. Hale later said that finally talking openly about what happened aboard the Daniel J. Morrell, and the survivor guilt that followed him, became an important part of his healing. He eventually told the full story in his autobiography, Shipwrecked: Reflections of the Sole Survivor.
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Long and skinny ships slice through waves efficiently and are highly seaworthy when properly operated, but they can be tippy at a standstill and capsize more easily if weight is shifted suddenly.
Yea and also if the hulls are weakened by corrosion…there was one 100 years old when they retired her…so more are fine than not. It’s the ones that sink that get our attention.
First if I was a sailor I think I would take my vacation in November! It’s beyond belief that this man survived. But it gives us that first hand account. Something you laid out very nicely I must say. Never hurts to get chills on a hot day, it’s supposed to feel like 95 this afternoon.
Yea…that is what I was thinking. Most of what I’ve written about the Great Lakes so far…November and December are the two deadly months.
We are cooling down today…with some rain
Nice to get a break from that heat!
Wow, this is a case double trauma – incredible that he survived
I totally agree. What a dreadful moment that man had.
Talk about a Twilight Zone moment. And, Max, you tell the story perfectly.
WOW
Thank you Arthur! I like the new user name.
No explanation regarding the new user name. Ask your “friends” at WordPress.
LOL…
The WP Improvement Team strike again!
Wow. Very reminiscent of the Edmund Fitzgerald isn’t it? Amazing the one man survived – how’d he eventually get rescued? You might have a point on the design but I also wondered, before you mentioned it, about the metal at that age. Back when I was a kid, cars in Ontario rusted! It was rare to see one over about 5 years old without rust holes. Salt put on snowy roads was a big factor but just the changes in extreme temperatures and rain, splashing and all did it …so imagine an all metal craft sitting constantly in the water for decades.
Yes it is…the structures of those become weak…if you are running them out in normal seas… they are perfectly fine…even when they are weakened a little…but those storms will find a weakness in a heartbeat.
for sure. November can be a stormy month in the Great Lakes area as it transitions quickly from fall to winter and at that point, the lakes are still relatively ‘warm’ (not for swimming or anything though… maybe, like 45 degrees) compared to the air and I think the warm, moist air rising off them fuels the storms and makes them bigger.
I never thought that the North Atlantic would have competition with storms…but the Great Lakes is… from what I read Dave…they can come up very quickly…be calm and then you are stuck in the middle of one.
Max, as someone noted above…a real Twilight Zone scenario playing out here. Nice to be swimming over here, but me thinks I should get my hands on a life preserver for these kind of reads!
I’m so glad to hear from you Bruce! Welcome aboard! I started to post about the Titanic on my powerpop blog and it reawakened my interest in ships…but its really more stories than the ships…hope you will like…again great to see you again
I don’t pretend for a minute to know anything about ships or sailing, but interesting and haunting story.
I didn’t either to tell you the truth…a love for Titanic led me down a lot of halls. It’s the stories that grab me…some very haunting but some upbeat…I will try to mix them up.
Thank you for reading though regardless!
I think that is true for many of us. Me? I don’t know nothing about this stuff. But the stories are INCREDIBLE!!!
The pic just above the videos looks like the ship is covered in zebra mussels, an invasive species in The Great Lakes.
Reading this and the others and seeing a continuing issue of them breaking in two, I just had an idea for ship design. Why not build them in two pieces, attached together like rail cars on a train? And add engines at either end. And make it a law that Halloween is the last day they work until spring? I cannot imagine the horror the guy felt when he realized what was happening.
I didn’t know that…about the zebra mussels…thanks!
That idea would be worth a try! That way if the load starts going down it would detach instead of taking everyone down with it. I think your last idea is really solid…November and December should not be traveled. I’m hoping now with weather reports…they would head that advice… but I wouldn’t bet on it.
You are correct…most of the time when they find these…they are broken in two. I mean more of these survive but still…in calm waters they are fine…but I would get nervous in a storm. I’m doing one now on a cargo freighter but…it is a “whaleback” which I think the design is smart…but has it’s drawbacks.
Looking forward to hearing about the whaleback but since you are writing on shipwrecks, I’m thinking maybe not totally forward to it. You know what I mean.
I never heard of zebra muscles. So I looked it up (thank you Google) and while they are a problem, I don’t know that they had anything to do with sinking the ship. They are a real problem, according to Google and Google quoting Wiki.
I quote, reaching for the joke:
Where did zebra mussels originally come from?
Zebra mussels are native to the drainage basins of the Black, Caspian and Aral Seas of Eastern Europe. It is believed that ships originating from European ports carried the mussel in freshwater ballast that was discharged into Great Lake ports.
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming…
zebra mussels wait
in the deep; misfortune brings
new condos, wrecked things
p.s. didn’t know where they came from, but now I do. Thanks for the info
Another eye opener Max, well presented. I keep a’learning. Once more I don’t think a life on the ocean wave, or worse a life on the stormy Great Lakes would have been for me. And yes, the survivor must have thought he was stuck in an Alfred Hitchcock movie or something. Imagine that half-assed boat churning its way towards you? It would be piddle-as-you-paddle time.
Thank you…it’s a whole different style of writing which I’ve never done before. I can’t imagine what that guy was feeling obbverse. You survive the sinking and now you have to go one on one with a huge metal floating object coming right at you. When I started this…I thought I would run out of stories…not even close.
Great, its good to have a change-up, it keeps the mind open and fresh to new ideas. And sometimes truth is stranger than any Stephen King fever dream.
lol…yes it is man…I wouldn’t have believed this if it came from Hollywood.
https://theelephantstrunk.org/2026/07/11/torn-in-two-a-narrative-monologue/
You described this so well, very scary!
Thanks Dana I appreciate it!
Poor guy!…not mention his shipmates! I love how you described the ship breaking into and the bow moving toward Hale on it’s own. Powerful. Haunting. Devastating.
Thank you, Pam… I can’t imagine what that guy went through. Ive read now a lot of stories, but none have this happen….btw…I tried to think like you while writing the intro…I didn’t get there but that helped.
The intro is great. That’s a very nice compliment. Thank you!
Sorry I’m so late to the discussion. I just finished “Shipwrecked: Reflections of the Sole Survivor: An Autobiography by Dennis Hale”. He gives his first person account of the wreck, his survival, and the aftermath.
Survivor guilt was a major part of his life – his mother died while giving birth to him and he was raised by an aunt (and abused by an older cousin), striking out on his own as a teen (and being caught and hauled back multiple times).
He relates his near-death experiences (including meeting his dead shipmates and being visited on the raft by a stranger who warned him not to eat the ice off of his coat because it would lower his body temperature and kill him) and notes that he told them to a priest shortly after his rescue. The priest told him he should never talk about that, hinting that he was crazy. It was years before he began to tell his story, which finally started his healing.
The book was recommended by William Kent Krueger, who used it as the fictional backstory for one of the characters in his novel “Purgatory Ridge”.
Oh anytime. I remember watching him on some documentaries. Thanks so much for this information I really appreciate it. What a harrowing experience even before the wreck. I’ll have to read that book. I’m mad at myself for missing this. I can’t believe he even survived…I can’t imagine the guilt he carried around.
Thanks again.
I hope you don’t mind…I’ve added it to the post.