LAKE SUPERIOR, Mich. -- A month-long swimmer is underway to mark 50 years since the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior.
All 29 crew members died on Nov. 10, 1975, when the American Great Leaks freighter went down in gale-force winds and waves up to 35 feet, per Wikipedia. It was the largest ship on the Great Lakes at the time. It took on its final voyage the previous day from Superior, Wisconsin, and was headed to a steel mill near Detroit carrying about 26,000 ton of iron more.
The incident was chronicled in folk singer Gordon Lightfoot's famous song, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
West Michigan marathon swimmer Jim "The Shark" Dreyer organized the memorial swim from near the site of the wreckage by Whitefish Point to Belle Isle, near Detroit.
A spokesman for the marathon, David Volk, emailed WOOD Radio late Monday morning to say, "Things are moving fast! Working on stage 7 and stage 15 replacements. Stage 6 is in the water now and killing it. Our tracker shows 10 miles complete of 35.3. In less than 4 hours."
Nearly people are swimming relays in 17 stages as part of the Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Swim, which is 411 miles long.
The swim also is serving as a fundraiser to preserve the Whitefish Point Light House.
The swim will symbolically finish the crew's journey. The ship was carrying about 26,000 tons of iron ore when it went down during a storm. And some iron ore will be brought to the mayor of Detroit at the end of the swim.
"The film is going to be called The Legend Lives On, and it's going to be documenting these 68 swimmers," Dreyer told WOOD Radio. "And, really, the whole journey, all 411 miles. You know, from town to town, down the coastline and everything that these swimmers go through.
"The cool thing is these swimmers are making history while they're commemorating history. And then the back story is if of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And even a larger back story is the shipping industry in the Great Lakes, and how it really built the economies of both the United States and Canada," said Dreyer, of Byron Center.
The event began with a ceremony in the waters over where the Edmund Fitzgerald's wreckage lies. Some family members of those who died were there.
Dreyer said he began organizing the memorial swim in the fall of 2023. He said he expects the (Fahrenheit) water temperature in Lake Superior in July to be in the 50s or colder.
He is recommending that the swimmers wear wet suits.
More than 30,000 mariners have died at least 6,000 shipwrecks on the Great Lakes, and that is just since records have been kept.
More information is available via this website link.
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