Cargo Freighters – Old Steam Ships

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.

I think some of the best stories come from the Great Lakes, both good and bad. Looking back, I’m so glad that Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about this cargo freighter. Tragedies should get recognized, and hopefully, lessons will be learned from them. I learned about it at 9 years old with the song. Without that, I probably never would have known about her. Because of the song, she is remembered along with the Lusitania and Titanic. But, unfortunately, she will not be the last cargo freighter we will see. The Great Lakes have taken many of them before and after.

She was a steamship. The SS means “Steam Ship” or “Screw Steamer.” The word “Screw” means the propellers; that is what they were called. In fact, the steamships had warnings on the back of their ships, like below; the Titanic had one as well. They did this so tugboats and others would not follow too close and be sucked into their propellers. For those who think steamships were only in the 1800s and early 1900s, there are some still in operation today.

She was launched in 1958 and quickly became one of the most famous ships on the Great Lakes. At 729 feet long, she was the largest ship on the lakes at the time and carried taconite iron ore from Minnesota to steel mills around the lower lakes. Her crews respected her. She had a reputation as a dependable ship and often set cargo records. For years, she worked without major incident and became something of a celebrity among Great Lakes sailors and ship watchers. Her nickname was The Mighty Fitz. She was huge, a little over two American football fields long.

That changed on November 10, 1975. The Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin, loaded with ore pellets and headed toward Detroit. She was sailing with the freighter SS Arthur M. Anderson when both ships encountered one of the worst storms ever recorded on Lake Superior. Winds reached hurricane force, and waves climbed to enormous heights. During the evening, the ship reported damage and problems taking on water. Then, at about 7:10 p.m., she suddenly disappeared from radar. No distress call was sent. All 29 crew members were lost.

The exact cause of the sinking is still debated. Some believe the ship struck a shoal and suffered fatal damage. Others think huge waves overwhelmed her, or that structural problems weakened the hull. Investigations have never produced a single answer that everyone agrees upon. The wreck was discovered on November 14, 1975, resting in two large sections on the bottom of Lake Superior, about 530 feet down. Over the years, she became more than a shipwreck story. She became a symbol of the dangers faced by Great Lakes sailors. It is estimated that 6,000 to 10,0000 shipwrecks are in the Great Lakes, with over 30,000 souls lost. That figure is staggering to me.

After the wreck was found, divers eventually recovered the Fitzgerald’s bronze bell. In 1995, a memorial service was held where the original bell was replaced on the wreck with a replica. During the ceremony, the names of all 29 crew members were read aloud, and the bell was rung once for each man. It wasn’t about the ship anymore. It was about making sure the crew would never be forgotten.

The tragedy might have remained known mainly around the Great Lakes if not for Gordon Lightfoot. While he was reading a magazine article about the sinking, Lightfoot was struck by how little attention the crew seemed to receive outside the region. He felt the men deserved to be remembered as people, not just as part of a disaster. In 1976, he wrote and recorded the song, and it became one of his biggest hits and introduced millions of listeners to the story. Even today, many people first learn about Fitzgerald, like I did, through Lightfoot’s song. That helped ensure that the crew and their ship would never be forgotten.

When the Fitzgerald failed to arrive at Whitefish Bay, wives and children were simply waiting for their husbands and fathers to come home from another routine trip. Most Great Lakes voyages ended without incident. These were the twenty-nine men who sailed aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald on her final voyage. More than fifty years later, they’re still remembered by their families, friends, and everyone who believes their story should never be forgotten. The 29 crew members who lost their life companion page.