Lake Superior winds continue to delay shipping

   UPDATE 10 a.m. MONDAY: Vessel traffic is on the move after high winds have died down. 

   ORIGINAL REPORT: ST. MARYS RIVER – After low water in the Rock Cut at Barbeau forced her to drop the hook in the Nine Mile anchorage Saturday night, Joseph L. Block resumed her downbound trip late Sunday afternoon.

   Weather is continuing to affect shipping on the northern Great Lakes. Five vessels – American Century, Federal Shimanto, Wigeon, Kathy McKeil and Edwin H. Gott – were at anchor in the lee of Whitefish Point Sunday evening. USCG Mackinaw was stopped near Lime Island, while Indiana Harbor remained anchored north of DeTour. The small USCG 49412 was busy swapping summer buoys for winter markers. She and USCG Spar are filling in for the USCG Buckthorn, which is drydocked at Escanaba, MI, for scheduled maintenance.

   Wilfred Sykes, Lee A. Tregurtha and American Mariner were hunkered down at Marquette Sunday. Other vessels on Lake Superior were taking the northerly course.

Big Blue 70 in Manitowoc ready to go, but holding for weather

Update:  She is loaded on the barge and ready to go. They were supposed to leave Saturday morning but are now waiting on weather.
     Next departure time is said to be at first light Monday November 17
[Photos in Gallery Below]

Gale Warnings Up on Northern Great Lakes

   Sault Ste. Marie, MI – Gale warnings are in effect for portions of Lake Superior and northern Lake Huron. NW winds Saturday evening lowered the water level of the Rock Cut on the St. Marys River, prompting the downbound Joseph L. Block to drop the hook in the 9 Mile Anchorage. The Two Harbors-bound Indiana Habor spent Saturday anchored above DeTour, while American Century, headed to Superior, WI, sought shelter in the lee of Whitefish Point.
   Herbert C. Jackson, headed for Muskegon, was sheltering off Port Inland.
   At 9 p.m. Saturday, the USCG Mackinaw and the Edwin H. Gott were on course for DeTour.  Hon. James L. Oberstar and CCG Samuel Risley were downbound Saturday morning.
   The forecast calls for highest gusts up to 40 kts from the northwest and highest waves around 12 feet expected until 10 p.m. Sunday.
   USCG Spar was upbound Saturday afternoon, followed by the small buoy tender CG 49412, with green buoys on her aft deck. Both moored at Group Soo base.

Big Blue 70 in Manitowoc ready to go but holding for weather

Update:  She is loaded on the barge and ready to go. They were supposed to leave Saturday morning but are now waiting on weather.
     Nest departure time is said to be at first light Monday November 17
[Photos in Gallery Below]

Interlake Maritime Services promotes two executives

In a press release Interlake Maritime services has promoted two executives.
   Kyle Fries has been promoted to Vice President of Fleet Engineering
   Phil Moore will Transition to Vice President of Marine Technical Services
  [You may read the complete letter in the Gallery Below]

Vancouver Shipyards delivers cutting-edge science vessel to Canadian Coast Guard

Written by Marine Log Staff
11-14-2025
   Seaspan Shipyards this week officially delivered the offshore oceanographic science vessel (OOSV) CCGS Naalak Nappaaluk, to the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) in an acceptance ceremony at its Vancouver Shipyards.
   CCGS Naalak Nappaaluk is named after a well-respected Inuk elder from Nunavik, who was a renowned promoter of Inuit language and culture.
   Built at a project cost of CAD 1.47 billion, the 88-meter long ship will replace CCGS Hudson, which was decommissioned in 2022 following 59 years of dedicated service. The new OOSV will be Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s primary oceanographic science platform and is the largest dedicated science vessel ever built for the Canadian Coast Guard. It combines cutting-edge marine research facilities with robust operational versatility.
   With a crew capacity of 34 crew plus 26 scientists it will have a range and endurance of over 6,000 nautical miles and up to six weeks at sea and can also support search and rescue and environmental response operations.

Key features include:
   Modular working deck allowing mission-specific science modules to be swapped in and out;
   Marine mammal observation station for real-time environmental monitoring;
   Ocean sampling room and multiple specialized laboratories (general-purpose, chemical, acoustics, salinity, computer, and seawater);
   Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) and Hydro Wire Launch and Recovery System (LARS);
   Main and secondary cranes, stern A-frame, towing booms, and seismic compressors for deep-water deployments;
   Drop keel and advanced sonar/sensor arrays for detailed ocean-data collection.
   The OOSV will sail to Patricia Bay for Canadian Coast Guard training and familiarity before starting its voyage to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the ship’s home port.
   The OOSV’s delivery follows a number of other shipbuilding milestones at Seaspan over the last year, including the launch of HMCS Protecteur, cutting steel on the CCG’s new heavy polar Icebreaker, a successful functional design review for the multi-purpose icebreakers and the design award for six U.S. Coast Guard Arctic Security Cutters.
   “Seaspan is immensely proud to deliver CCGS Naalak Nappaaluk, an incredibly complex vessel that will perform important scientific research missions for Canada. As the first shipyard to deliver two different classes of ships under the National Shipbuilding Strategy, Seaspan is showing that the investments made to rebuild shipbuilding on the West Coast have been successful — we are designing and building ships for Canada, in Canada,” said John McCarthy, CEO, Seaspan Shipyards. “Today’s celebration is thanks to the dedication, creativity and teamwork of our engineers, designers, naval architects, skilled tradespeople, suppliers and Coast Guard partners. Thank you and congratulations to all on this magnificent milestone.”
   “The delivery of the CCGS Naalak Nappaaluk marks a major milestone in our efforts to modernize the Canadian Coast Guard’s fleet,” said Mario Pelletier, Commissioner, Canadian Coast Guard. “As our largest dedicated science vessel, this ship will serve as a world-class platform for critical d research, supporting sustainable marine resource management and our response to changing ocean conditions. I want to extend my sincere congratulations to the team at Vancouver Shipyards for their skill, dedication, and craftsmanship in bringing this complex and vital vessel to life. Their work helps ensure that Canada remains at the forefront of ocean science and marine safety for generations to come.”

Relic from the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is returned, plus $600,000 from Michigan

   DETROIT (AP) – The state of Michigan is giving up ownership of a rare relic from the famous Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck, just weeks after it strangely obtained it through a settlement in a lawsuit that was completely unrelated to the doomed freighter.
   Larry Orr is getting one of the ship’s life rings back – and the state will still pay $600,000 to settle his lawsuit over police misconduct. “I feel a whole lot better,” Orr, 77, told The Associated Press this week.
   In 1975, eight days after the Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, killing all 29 men, Orr said he found the life ring and a piece of a lifeboat on shore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
   “There was an eerie feeling. Maybe someone had survived,” he recalled. “I looked around for footprints or any other sign of life for a while and never found anything.”
   Fast forward 50 years to this autumn: Orr was in talks with the Michigan State Police to settle a lawsuit. He accused Lt. David Busacca of violating his rights during a sexual abuse investigation that was ultimately discredited. Orr had spent five months in jail, in addition to house arrest, before charges were dropped in 2019.
   Orr and his attorney, Shannon Smith, said the state suddenly expressed interest in the Fitzgerald life ring during the negotiations. Orr said Busacca was aware that he owned it when he saw paperwork during a search of his Michigan home.
   Orr said he felt he was being manipulated, but he also needed money to move out of a recreation vehicle in Yulee, Florida. Smith said throwing the ring into the deal raised the settlement to $600,000 from roughly $300,000. “I think we should have gotten a million for everything they did to me,” Orr said.
   The AP was first to report the peculiar deal on Oct. 23. When state police were asked to explain why it was appropriate, spokesperson Shanon Banner said the department was “not comfortable.”
   Additional talks among lawyers led to a new agreement: Orr gets the ring back while taxpayers will still be on the hook for $600,000 to close the police misconduct lawsuit. Banner acknowledged the terms this week.
   For decades, Orr allowed the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan, to display the orange ring, which has “Fitzgerald” in stenciled letters. Now he might sell it at auction.
   Orr said he’s trying to buy a modular home and his wife’s car “is on its last legs. I need all the money I can get,” he said.

[Associated Press]

Thousands attend Edmund Fitzgerald 50th memorial ceremony at Whitefish Point

   WHITEFISH POINT, NMI – Thousands of people gathered at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point on a windswept section of Lake Superior on Monday, Nov. 10 to mark the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
   Between 2,000 and 3,000 people are estimated to have attended the memorial ceremony on Monday.
   The Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that launched in 1958. It was the largest ship on North America’s Great Lakes and remains the largest to have sunk there.
   The outdoor public remembrance service featured numerous speakers and presentations.
   “We’ve discovered 15 shipwrecks in the last four years, and those are just the most recent of the thousands discovered in the Great Lakes,” said Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and Historical Society Executive Director Bruce Lynn. “But no shipwreck stands out in the public consciousness like the Edmund Fitzgerald does.”
   Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also paid tribute to the famous shipwreck during Monday’s ceremony.
   “The mighty Edmund Fitzgerald and its 29 crew disappeared below Lake Superior’s waves,” Whitmer opened. She spoke of the resilience of Michigan workers then and now, every day working people who, even in the face of grave danger, continue to strive for their families and communities. Whitmer also recalled Michigan’s long role in the maritime industry and shipping, and how those characteristics put the state at the center of much of the nation’s 20th-century thrust into modernity.
   Michigan Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) followed the governor, referencing the state House and Senate’s recent resolutions commemorating the 50th anniversary of the shipwreck. Like the governor, Damoose spoke about Michigan’s central role in 20th-century U.S. growth, particularly its service as the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II, producing and shipping weapons to the Allied forces in Europe and the Pacific.
   “We declared today, Nov. 10, 2025, ‘Edmund Fitzgerald Day,’” said Damoose. “It’s my honor to present that resolution here on these northern shores in memory of the haunting tragedy that unfolded on Lake Superior just a few miles from where we stand, 50 years ago.”
   New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon, who recently published a book called “The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” was the keynote speaker.
   Bacon regaled the audience with little-known, recently discovered facts and important historical details about the Edmund Fitzgerald, its crew and the importance of Great Lakes shipping.
   “After World War II, no region was more vital to the nation’s economic strength than the Great Lakes,” Bacon said. “This part of the world was the center of the global economy, possessing all the power and prestige that Silicon Valley enjoys today. That industrial dominance depended on Great Lakes freighters getting iron ore from the shores of Lake Superior to the factories in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Toledo.”
   Bacon noted that during the 20th century, 37 of the 100 largest companies in America were based in and around Detroit.
   “Shipping was the circulatory system to the beating heart of American manufacturing, and that beating heart was located in Detroit,” Bacon said.
   Bacon added that despite the importance of Great Lakes shipping, few people know about the lives of those who make it possible, primarily because, while other tradespeople are known and talked about because they interact within their communities, sailors are away on ships for much of the year.
   “When something is too hard for everyone else, it’s just right for us,” Bacon said, referring to those in the crowd and Great Lakes residents writ large. “When we think about what keeps this particular story alive, I’d just like to turn the microphone to everyone gathered here, because you’re the answer. Somewhere between two and three-thousand people are here with us today, on a cold, windy, gray, snowy, November day outside in below freezing weather, to commemorate a tragedy that happened half-a-century ago. So thank you. Thank you for keeping this story alive so we, and those who come after us, will never forget it. We’re not gone until the last person who remembered us is gone, and my hope is that we never live in a world in which no one remembers the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
   Some people drove hours just to attend the ceremony and pay their respects to the lost crew.
   “The whole story is just so unusual,” said Elk Rapids resident Pat Miller when we asked what the shipwreck meant to him. “When the Edmund Fitzgerald left Duluth, it was such a nice day, and everything felt normal. But then it disappeared into a storm and ‘poof!’ it was gone. But Gordon Lightfoot popularized the ship and the crew, which brought national attention to it. That led to public outcry and the U.S. population pressuring shipping companies to make shipping safer. That’s why we haven’t had a single wreck since, despite there being around 6,000 wrecks before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.”
   Author and musician Mike Fornes talked about how so many people around the country and the world know about this shipwreck, thanks largely to “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.
   “We have Gordon Lightfoot to thank for making a hit song about the shipwreck in 1976 that became #1 on the charts in Canada and #2 on the charts in the United States,” Fornes said. “Lightfoot and his musicians got together and literally just took a crack at the song after never practicing it before. They didn’t know their sound engineer was recording them at the time, and that first attempt, the one that the band members tried out while having no real idea what kind of song they were trying to create, that first attempt at the song is the version you hear on the radio.”
   The bell of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975, is on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point.
   Sean Ley, development officer for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, began the solemn recitation of the names of the 29 sailors who lost their lives in the tragedy. At the reading of each name, family members of the lost mariners rang the bell. Once the last name was called, Ley called for a final ringing of the bell for the freighter itself.
   Just as the last note of the bell began to die down, Fornes took to the podium to play the crowd off with a rendition of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
   Later on Monday night, the museum welcomed family members of the crew in a private remembrance ceremony.
   Ren Brabenec is a Brimley-based freelance writer and journalist with The Sault News.

Thousands attend Edmund Fitzgerald 50th memorial ceremony at Whitefish Point

   WHITEFISH POINT, NMI – Thousands of people gathered at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point on a windswept section of Lake Superior on Monday, Nov. 10 to mark the 50th anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
   Between 2,000 and 3,000 people are estimated to have attended the memorial ceremony on Monday.
   The Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that launched in 1958. It was the largest ship on North America’s Great Lakes and remains the largest to have sunk there.
   The outdoor public remembrance service featured numerous speakers and presentations.
   “We’ve discovered 15 shipwrecks in the last four years, and those are just the most recent of the thousands discovered in the Great Lakes,” said Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and Historical Society Executive Director Bruce Lynn. “But no shipwreck stands out in the public consciousness like the Edmund Fitzgerald does.”
   Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also paid tribute to the famous shipwreck during Monday’s ceremony.
   “The mighty Edmund Fitzgerald and its 29 crew disappeared below Lake Superior’s waves,” Whitmer opened. She spoke of the resilience of Michigan workers then and now, every day working people who, even in the face of grave danger, continue to strive for their families and communities. Whitmer also recalled Michigan’s long role in the maritime industry and shipping, and how those characteristics put the state at the center of much of the nation’s 20th-century thrust into modernity.
   Michigan Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) followed the governor, referencing the state House and Senate’s recent resolutions commemorating the 50th anniversary of the shipwreck. Like the governor, Damoose spoke about Michigan’s central role in 20th-century U.S. growth, particularly its service as the Arsenal of Democracy during World War II, producing and shipping weapons to the Allied forces in Europe and the Pacific.
   “We declared today, Nov. 10, 2025, ‘Edmund Fitzgerald Day,’” said Damoose. “It’s my honor to present that resolution here on these northern shores in memory of the haunting tragedy that unfolded on Lake Superior just a few miles from where we stand, 50 years ago.”
   New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon, who recently published a book called “The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” was the keynote speaker.
   Bacon regaled the audience with little-known, recently discovered facts and important historical details about the Edmund Fitzgerald, its crew and the importance of Great Lakes shipping.
   “After World War II, no region was more vital to the nation’s economic strength than the Great Lakes,” Bacon said. “This part of the world was the center of the global economy, possessing all the power and prestige that Silicon Valley enjoys today. That industrial dominance depended on Great Lakes freighters getting iron ore from the shores of Lake Superior to the factories in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Toledo.”
   Bacon noted that during the 20th century, 37 of the 100 largest companies in America were based in and around Detroit.
   “Shipping was the circulatory system to the beating heart of American manufacturing, and that beating heart was located in Detroit,” Bacon said.
   Bacon added that despite the importance of Great Lakes shipping, few people know about the lives of those who make it possible, primarily because, while other tradespeople are known and talked about because they interact within their communities, sailors are away on ships for much of the year.
   “When something is too hard for everyone else, it’s just right for us,” Bacon said, referring to those in the crowd and Great Lakes residents writ large. “When we think about what keeps this particular story alive, I’d just like to turn the microphone to everyone gathered here, because you’re the answer. Somewhere between two and three-thousand people are here with us today, on a cold, windy, gray, snowy, November day outside in below freezing weather, to commemorate a tragedy that happened half-a-century ago. So thank you. Thank you for keeping this story alive so we, and those who come after us, will never forget it. We’re not gone until the last person who remembered us is gone, and my hope is that we never live in a world in which no one remembers the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
   Some people drove hours just to attend the ceremony and pay their respects to the lost crew.
   “The whole story is just so unusual,” said Elk Rapids resident Pat Miller when we asked what the shipwreck meant to him. “When the Edmund Fitzgerald left Duluth, it was such a nice day, and everything felt normal. But then it disappeared into a storm and ‘poof!’ it was gone. But Gordon Lightfoot popularized the ship and the crew, which brought national attention to it. That led to public outcry and the U.S. population pressuring shipping companies to make shipping safer. That’s why we haven’t had a single wreck since, despite there being around 6,000 wrecks before the Edmund Fitzgerald went down.”
   Author and musician Mike Fornes talked about how so many people around the country and the world know about this shipwreck, thanks largely to “The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot.
   “We have Gordon Lightfoot to thank for making a hit song about the shipwreck in 1976 that became #1 on the charts in Canada and #2 on the charts in the United States,” Fornes said. “Lightfoot and his musicians got together and literally just took a crack at the song after never practicing it before. They didn’t know their sound engineer was recording them at the time, and that first attempt, the one that the band members tried out while having no real idea what kind of song they were trying to create, that first attempt at the song is the version you hear on the radio.”
   The bell of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975, is on display at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point.
   Sean Ley, development officer for the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, began the solemn recitation of the names of the 29 sailors who lost their lives in the tragedy. At the reading of each name, family members of the lost mariners rang the bell. Once the last name was called, Ley called for a final ringing of the bell for the freighter itself.
   Just as the last note of the bell began to die down, Fornes took to the podium to play the crowd off with a rendition of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
   Later on Monday night, the museum welcomed family members of the crew in a private remembrance ceremony.
   Ren Brabenec is a Brimley-based freelance writer and journalist with The Sault News.

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