Re: [Cal_Boats] Winter Waves on Lake Erie both awesomely beautiful and terrifying

I was a deck hand on the Joe S Morrow in 1953 and learned great respect for the Great Lakes, she was 487ft and one of the smaller ships, coal fired hand fed. At first glance she was huge but when you faced the open water she was but a toy.I still remember the first time I experienced her bending in the middle bow and stern up and center down then reversed I ran to the 1st mate, she's breaking up, he calmly said spring the cables fore and aft she's built to flex and you have a lot to learn . getting back to the point l was shocked at the loss of the Bradley remembering how lmpresive she was as she passed by. From: "ccampbell cc… [at] lsnm.org [Cal_Boats]" <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> Date: 01/20/2016 11:09 AM (GMT-05:00) To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Winter Waves on Lake Erie both awesomely beautiful and terrifying On 1/19/2016 5:50 PM, david dobbs tm… [at] yahoo.com [Cal_Boats] wrote: Gerry, The Great Lakes are dangerous places to be in winter, even late fall. It's worth remembering that the most famous shipwreck song of all is Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The Fitzgerald went down in 1975 after breaking up in a November storm on Lake Superior. The boat was 729 feet long. I've been around Great Lakes freighters all my life. They're big boats, big tough steel boats. When I see one in the river channel it's hard to imagine any waves making trouble for such a huge device. Then I've seen photographs of waves breaking over the vessels, green water over the decks, and it's humbling. Another one I remember was the Daniel J. Morrell, another "gales of November" victim, in 1966. This boat was smaller (586 feet) but that's still pretty big when you're looking up from your little sailboat. The Morrell was on her last voyage of the year, and broke in half in a big Lake Huron storm. The stern section kept going a while and the pieces are 7 miles apart on the lakebed. One crew member survived in a liferaft (uncovered) wearing boxer shorts, a pea coat, and a PFD. Dennis Hale, the survivor, began talking publicly about the ordeal late in his life. I heard one of his first presentations and he still couldn't get through it without big pauses to compose himself. There's a video interview here: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Daniel+J.+Morrell&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003 I remember waking up as a grade school kid one November morning in 1958 to news that the Carl D. Bradley had gone down. 33 of 35 crew members were lost. 23 were from the same town in Michigan about 170 miles north of where my family lived. This was a 639 foot boat. Chris Campbell

On 1/20/2016 1:01 PM, mooserent7447 mo… [at] aol.com [Cal_Boats] wrote: > > > I was a deck hand on the Joe S Morrow in 1953 and learned great > respect for the Great Lakes, she was 487ft and one of the smaller > ships, coal fired hand fed. At first glance she was huge but when you > faced the open water she was but a toy.I still remember the first time > I experienced her bending in the middle bow and stern up and center > down then reversed I ran to the 1st mate, she's breaking up, he > calmly said spring the cables fore and aft she's built to flex and you > have a lot to learn . getting back to the point l was shocked at the > loss of the Bradley remembering how lmpresive she was as she passed by. Who is this from? It doesn't show up any more unless you sign the message--until I hit "reply." Then the sender pops up. Chris Campbell > > > Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: "ccampbell cc… [at] lsnm.org [Cal_Boats]" > <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> > Date: 01/20/2016 11:09 AM (GMT-05:00) > To: Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [Cal_Boats] Winter Waves on Lake Erie both awesomely > beautiful and terrifying > > > > On 1/19/2016 5:50 PM, david dobbs tm… [at] yahoo.com [Cal_Boats] wrote: >> Gerry, >> The Great Lakes are dangerous places to be in winter, even late fall. > > > It's worth remembering that the most famous shipwreck song of all is > Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The Fitzgerald > went down in 1975 after breaking up in a November storm on Lake > Superior. The boat was 729 feet long. I've been around Great Lakes > freighters all my life. They're big boats, big tough steel boats. > When I see one in the river channel it's hard to imagine any waves > making trouble for such a huge device. Then I've seen photographs of > waves breaking over the vessels, green water over the decks, and it's > humbling. > > > Another one I remember was the Daniel J. Morrell, another "gales of > November" victim, in 1966. This boat was smaller (586 feet) but > that's still pretty big when you're looking up from your little > sailboat. The Morrell was on her last voyage of the year, and broke in > half in a big Lake Huron storm. The stern section kept going a while > and the pieces are 7 miles apart on the lakebed. One crew member > survived in a liferaft (uncovered) wearing boxer shorts, a pea coat, > and a PFD. Dennis Hale, the survivor, began talking publicly about > the ordeal late in his life. I heard one of his first presentations > and he still couldn't get through it without big pauses to compose > himself. There's a video interview here: >> https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=Daniel+J.+Morrell&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003 > > I remember waking up as a grade school kid one November morning in > 1958 to news that the Carl D. Bradley had gone down. 33 of 35 crew > members were lost. 23 were from the same town in Michigan about 170 > miles north of where my family lived. This was a 639 foot boat. > > Chris Campbell > > > > >

On 1/20/2016 1:01 PM, mooserent7447 mo… [at] aol.com [Cal_Boats] wrote: > > > I was a deck hand on the Joe S Morrow in 1953 and learned great > respect for the Great Lakes, she was 487ft and one of the smaller > ships, coal fired hand fed. One of my favorite little boats was the sandsucker Niagara that delivered foundry sand to the GM foundries upriver at Saginaw, MI. She was built in Bay City, where I grew up, in 1897. She was shortened to fit the St. Lawrence locks in 1926, ending up at 249 feet. She ran back and forth, back and forth in Bay City, causing traffic to stop each time at all the bridges in town. The drivers would curse but I always figured that is part of the charm of living in a port city. You get to see cool boats. Sailing content: Once when I was working summers at the sailboat rental/school operation, we rented a boat to some folks who got caught in a storm. They were in some minor distress and the old Niagara came upon them, circling around to provide some assurance (and probably some lee) until the Coast Guard arrived. I was fond of her before that, but all the more afterward. She was a durable old vessel and lasted a hundred years before she was scrapped. Once when I worked there, a stout German guy pulled up on a little motor scooter. He was the chief engineer on a big German salty that was in town. We communicated after a fashion and he invited us to tour the boat after work. All I can remember clearly is that massive diesel engine, the most enormous one i had ever seen. The other small freighters on the Lakes are the cement boats, which often must enter small ports or narrow rivers. Chris Campbell