Details of Fitzgerald's sinking

May 19, 2006 -- The Edmund Fitzgerald was in the worst place at the worst time when it sank in a severe Lake Superior storm.

WHITEFISH POINT, Mich. -- The Edmund Fitzgerald was in the worst place at the worst time when it sank in a severe Lake Superior storm, say meteorologists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The weather experts did a study of what happened to the 729-foot ore carrier on November 10, 1975, off the northern shore of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. All 29 men aboard died - 14 were from Ohio, including the captain and first mate.

The Fitzgerald encountered 69 mph winds, hurricane-force gusts and waves topping 25 feet, they said. In addition, the wind and waves from the west hit the freighter broadside as it tried to flee south to safety in Whitefish Bay.

"Six hours later or six hours earlier, conditions would still have been very bad but it would have made a huge difference," said Thomas Hultquist, lead author of the study and a science and operations officer in the agency's National Weather Service office in Negaunee.

The storm was brewing when the Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wis., on November 9, headed for Detroit.

The findings are published in the May issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. "It adds further credence, I think, to the importance of the storm in the loss," said Thom Holden, director of the Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center in Duluth, Minn.

On the Net: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: http://www.noaa.gov Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum: http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald Online: http://www.ssefo.com

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

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