The Night the Fitz Went Down

The year 2000 marks the 25th Anniversary of one of Lake Superior's unsolved mysteries. On November 10, 1975, a "mega-storm" over Lake Superior sank the ore carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald at the east end of Lake Superior. Although many theories have been expressed on the cause of this catastrophe, one widely held but rarely spoken reason has never been published -- until now. As the last living captain of an ore boat that also sailed through the worst of that storm, Captain Dudley Paquette relates his harrowing memoir of those hours leading up to the Fitzgerald wreck and of the dangerous search afterward. In the process, the reader gains deep insight into the mind of Great Lakes captains and what might have been the situation in the wheelhouse of the Fitzgerald as the big lake crashed across the decks. The real cause of the wreck might finally be known.