The Secrets of the Edmund Fitzgerald Sinking May Yet Be Revealed

A 1989 research dive of the wreckage may hold the conclusive answers to the great freighter’s sinking.

Photo taken off the video monitor on the Grayling as the ROV transmitted images of the sunken ship on August 27, 1989. Photo: USDA News/Larry Elliott.

“Superior, they said, never gives up her dead,
“When the gales of November come early,” — Gordon Lightfoot

Most of us know the ballad, its haunting lyrics and guitar riff, and how it can eerily place us in the tragic story of the Edmund Fitzgerald when it sank that night in a violent November storm on Lake Superior.

Many of us, maybe most of us, only know the story through Gordon Lightfoot’s famous song. However, one local resident played an integral role in uncovering the secrets of the great ship’s sinking with the idea that her story may not yet be complete.

Michigan Businessman/Publisher Bob Nester helped organize an expedition in 1989 to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Here, he recounts the mission and the emotion around it, suggesting, too, that the mystery surrounding the great freighter’s sinking may yet be revealed.

Bob Nestor helped coordinate an expedition to the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1989 that used new technology to produce clear images of the wreckage. Photo: Doug Marrin.