The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald
80 pages • 2-hour read
John U. BaconThe Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald
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Themes
The Conflict Between Profit and Safety
In The Gales of November, John U. Bacon shows how a long-standing clash between commercial profit and maritime safety shapes Great Lakes shipping and encourages risky choices. He describes a culture that influenced captains, crews, and regulators, where efficiency, speed, and heavy cargo loads steadily ate away at safety margins. Bacon ties this pattern to conditions that made the Edmund Fitzgerald’s final trip so dangerous. He grounds this tension in practices like loading ships beyond legal limits, pushing captains to meet demanding schedules, and revising regulations to favor profit over caution.
Bacon links financial incentives to daily decisions on board, especially when crews stretched legal load limits. He explains how sailors routinely “cheated the Plimsoll line,” the mark that set the allowed draft, because even a one-inch increase in draft produced another 120 long tons of taconite and earned the captain a bonus (85). Crews hid this extra weight by hosing down the hot deck so the metal contracted or by briefly draining potable water tanks before an inspection at the Soo Locks. These tricks reveal how sailors treated safety rules as obstacles to profit, a habit that became ingrained in the industry to such an extent that individual crews could not choose to prioritize safety without putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Companies encouraged this approach, and bonuses for larger loads kept captains focused on tonnage. Extra cargo reduced freeboard and left ships more exposed in rough weather.
Bacon then turns to the pressure on captains to keep fast schedules, which often pulled them away from caution. Captain Ernest McSorley, for example, had a strong reputation as a “gunner” who would sail through storms to complete routes on time, and shipping companies admired this pattern of risk-taking so long as his luck held (107, 111). This competitive climate sharpened during races to the Soo Locks, a chase that could shorten a trip by a full day. Bacon links these pressures to McSorley’s choice to take “one more run” in rough November weather (233), a decision shaped in part by his plan to earn a bonus to help pay his wife’s medical bills. The book frames his risk-taking as a response to the economic structure around him. This structure extends beyond the confines of the Great Lakes shipping industry to include policy choices at the national level. The lack of universal health care in the United States, coupled with the limitations of private insurance, force McSorley to put himself and his crew at risk to pay for his wife’s necessary care.
Bacon also shows how regulators worsened these risks. He describes the American Bureau of Shipping and the Coast Guard lowering the Fitzgerald’s required freeboard three times between 1969 and 1973, allowing the ship to ride over three feet deeper (86). This change added 4,710 long tons of cargo per trip and brought into official policy the same dangers crews had once hidden. Agencies justified these lower standards by pointing to the absence of recent accidents, a reaction that waited for problems instead of preventing them. By tying together financial rewards, competitive schedules, and relaxed regulations, Bacon presents the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald as the tragic end of a system that accepted safety risks as the cost of commerce.
The Overwhelming Power of Nature
The Gales of November presents the Great Lakes as a natural force that can overpower even the most experienced sailors and their advanced equipment. John U. Bacon builds this claim by laying out the science that explains the lakes’ danger, establishing the high level of skill aboard the Edmund Fitzgerald, and finally recounting how the storm on November 10, 1975, created conditions beyond the control of even these highly skilled and experienced sailors. This sequence shows a disaster shaped less by failure on the ship and more by the sheer intensity of a storm in which no one should have been sailing.
Bacon begins with the science behind the lakes’ behavior. He explains how freshwater creates waves that form closer together and hit harder than ocean waves. On Lake Superior, a freighter can meet waves only four to eight seconds apart, which means a 700-foot ship might hang between two crests in a way that strains the hull through “sagging,” or bend over one peak in a “hogging” motion (9). This rapid cycle taxes the ship’s structure. Bacon also describes how wave strength rises exponentially with wind speed: When wind speeds double from 20 to 40 mph, the waves can hit with at least sixteen times more power (11). These conditions test the limits of large ships.
After establishing the scientific context, Bacon focuses on the expertise aboard the Fitzgerald. He describes Captain Ernest McSorley as “widely considered the best captain on the Great Lakes” and emphasizes McSorley’s skill in bad weather (3, 108). The crew matched the captain’s experience, since McSorley had handpicked many of them and worked with them for years. Bacon stresses this level of skill to remove the idea that simple mistakes caused the wreck. The Fitzgerald was among the most prestigious ships on the Great Lakes, and Bacon notes numerous instances in which a transfer to this ship is seen as a hard-won promotion even if the sailor’s official job title remains the same. The experience on board only highlights how extreme the storm must have been.
Bacon closes this section with a close account of the November storm. He explains how a warm low-pressure system from the southwest collided with a cold Arctic front and created a meteorological bomb over Lake Superior (257). Forecasts did not capture the storm’s speed or intensity, and the system produced hurricane-force winds and waves that routinely reached at least 25 feet. In this kind of weather, the ship would likely have met rogue waves in the 40- to 60-foot range (297). McSorley underscored the danger when he told another captain he was in “one of the worst seas I’ve ever been in” (292). Bacon places this statement from an expert sailor against his scientific description of the storm to show how nature can exceed human skill and preparation.
How Tragedy Shapes Memory and Identity
In The Gales of November, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald takes on a role in shaping cultural memory and regional identity around the Great Lakes, with its impact lasting for generations after the disaster itself. John U. Bacon traces this change through the effect of artistic memorials, the creation of physical sites of remembrance, and the ties formed among the victims’ families. These strands show how the event became part of the region’s shared story and influenced how communities understand themselves in relation to the lakes that form their economic lifeblood. Even as the Great Lakes shipping industry has become far safer in the decades since the sinking of the Fitzgerald, Great Lakes communities have not forgotten the sailors whose deaths spurred those reforms.
Bacon begins with the role of art, especially Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” in keeping the story in public view. He explains that Lightfoot wrote the ballad after reading a Newsweek article that cast the event in a mythic frame (356). The song’s reach turned a regional disaster into an international story. Bacon notes Lightfoot’s effort to honor the facts, such as his decision to revise a lyric about a caved-in hatchway once evidence showed that the crew had secured the hatches (364). This willingness to revise his song in light of new evidence shows a commitment to the truth and a sense of responsibility to those left behind. Bacon shows Lightfoot wrestling with the ethics of making art from tragedy: While the song keeps the disaster in the public consciousness, it also risks falsifying or exploiting these events. That the crewmembers’ families eventually adopt the song as an unofficial anthem suggests that art, when undertaken with care, can be a source of healing and remembrance.
Physical memorials then gave families and communities a place to focus their grief. Bacon recounts how Ruth Hudson and other families worked for years to recover the ship’s 200-pound bronze bell (373). When crews raised it in 1995, they left a replica bell on the sunken pilothouse with the names of the 29 crewmen as a permanent underwater marker. The original bell now sits at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, where it rings 29 times each November 10 in the “Call to the Last Watch” ceremony (375). This annual ritual keeps the memory of the men active and gives the region a shared point of remembrance.
Bacon ends this arc by turning to the community formed by the victims’ families. He explains that these families hardly knew one another before the sinking but, over the decades, “had developed a deep trust” while working together (1). Their joint effort to protect the wreck from exploitation led the Canadian government to declare the site a protected gravesite (377). The families now gather each year, and Heidi Brabon, the daughter of crew member Blaine Wilhelm, tells Bacon that they have become “a family—truly” (389). Their continued connection shows how personal grief can form a collective identity, and how the memory of the Fitzgerald became a lasting part of life around the Great Lakes.
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