- [Rob] In the 50 years since the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, no other freighter has been lost on the Great Lakes.

- The Fitzgerald was a lesson, people learned the lesson, and now those changes that were made has resulted bearing the fruit of safe journeys, safe trip, and, hopefully, a continued tradition of sailing on the Great Lakes.

- [Rob] And captaining the oldest operating tugboat in the world on Lake Erie.

- Tugboat is just a big locomotive in the water, literally a locomotive.

(air whooshing) (intriguing upbeat music) (air whooshing) - [Announcer] This program is brought to you by: The Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation, The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at Detroit PBS, Polk Family Fund, DTE Foundation, and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(mellow orchestral music) (air whooshing) - Hi, I'm Rob Green, welcome to "Great Lakes Now."

Decades ago, ships sank on the Great Lakes with alarming regularity, but in the 50 years since the famous loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald, there have been no comparable tragedies.

We wondered why not?

(air whooshing) (intriguing somber orchestral music) Below the surface of the Great Lakes lie thousands of shipwrecks, each one a testament to the danger of sailing these inland seas.

For much of the history of commercial Great Lakes shipping, the loss of vessels and their crews was a regular, tragic occurrence.

(somber orchestral music) The most famous ship to go down on the Great Lakes is the Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank in Lake Superior during a brutal storm on the night of November 10th, 1975.

It's also the last large vessel to sink in the Great Lakes.

In the last 50 years, no freighter has followed the Fitzgerald to the bottom.

What changed?

How have the last 50 years of Great Lake shipping been so much safer than the previous 50, or the previous hundred?

(intriguing orchestral music) (water splashing) In June of 1958, upwards of 15,000 people watched the christening and launch of the Edmund Fitzgerald at the Great Lakes Engineering Works in River Rouge, Michigan.

The 729-foot freighter became the longest vessel sailing these waters and assumed the title "Queen of the Lakes."

She was put to work hauling taconite pellets from mines in Minnesota, often setting records for cargo hauled in a shipping season.

The Fitzgerald was powerful and modern, no one would've predicted her career would end in tragedy.

But as she crossed Lake Superior in a terrible storm on November 10th, 1975, she broke in two and went to the bottom.

- [Coast Guard] Several other saltwater vessels there that were also trying to have assist in the search, but it looks from the information that we have that it's fairly certain that the Fitzgerald went down.

- [Rob] Chris Gillcrist is director emeritus of the National Museum of the Great Lakes.

- It was sort of considered one of the great vessels of the American side.

And so, I think the reaction, certainly in the shipping community, was almost kind of stunned, and I think a lot of people in the industry, I think they thought that we had overcome the major obstacles and the major dangers that presented itself to commercial shipping, and that we were gonna be on a streak of no fatalities, no losses.

(intriguing somber music) - [Rob] The loss of the Fitzgerald proved that the lakes were as formidable and deadly as ever.

Fred Stonehouse is an author and historian who has studied the Edmund Fitzgerald since the day she sank.

- I think I would describe the Great Lakes as being bewildering.

(thunder rumbling) You can go from periods of flat, calm, and wonderful weather to periods of pure hell when those storms in November come calling, and they can literally beat the boat to death.

That makes the Great Lakes a very unique sailing environment as opposed to what most saltwater sailors will ever see.

- The shoals and the shorelines and the possibility of running aground or running into shallow water just becomes so much more significant than on the open waters of the North Atlantic that it really makes the Great Lakes a very dangerous place to sail.

And that's in part because it's different, waves and storms come up much quicker and are much less predictable.

(intriguing orchestral music) - [Rob] Conditions are at their worst in November, just as many ships are making their final runs of the season.

Paul Gross, a meteorologist and weather historian, in the Great Lakes region for more than 40 years, has dedicated his career to protecting people from the dangers of severe weather.

- So what happens is in early November, you're getting those first really cold air masses coming down from Canada.

But keep in mind those lakes are still relatively warmer, they don't get to their coldest point till you get into the late winter, early spring.

So what happens is, you have these cold air masses coming down over these warm lakes, that cold air over those warmer waters that creates a more unstable environment, it's called the Great Lakes aggregate.

So as these storm systems come up and get over the Great Lakes, they intensify even more.

(thunder rumbling) - [Rob] In the last 50 years, the lakes and the weather have gotten no safer, but standards and procedures have changed.

After the loss of the Fitzgerald, the National Transportation Safety Board released a Marine Accident Report, which revealed industry-wide safety gaps.

It includes two dozen recommendations for action at the US Coast Guard, the American Bureau of Shipping, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As a result, hatch inspections were tightened, depth finders, immersion suits, and emergency beacons became mandatory, navigational charts were revised, and load line regulations were reexamined to ensure ships could carry cargo without compromising stability or safety.

Lieutenant Aaron Rice leads the Prevention Department at Coast Guard Sector Detroit.

His team is responsible for inspecting both cargo and passenger vessels, ensuring they meet the strict safety and security standards required to sail the Great Lakes.

- It's incredibly high stakes in the maritime industry, and that's why it's heavily regulated and why the Coast Guard is so involved into making sure that when accidents do happen that we investigate them.

This is why our entire Prevention field exists in the Coast Guard as well.

We're called Prevention for a reason, because our inspectors every day when they go on board are trying to prevent the marine casualty, their accident that never happened.

There is an untold number of maritime disasters that never happened because of professional mariners and Coast Guard men and women who are inspecting these vessels.

You know, the saying goes that a lot of our regulations are written in blood, and that's the unfortunate circumstance, because the sea, the lakes, is a hazardous environment and you have incredibly expensive property, but even more precious than that is the souls of people.

(intriguing orchestral music) (intriguing dramatic orchestral music) - [Rob] These measures surely made Great Lakes freighters safer and less vulnerable to heavy weather.

But the surest way to survive a storm is to avoid it altogether.

And to do that, you need detailed, accurate weather data, data the crew of the Fitzgerald didn't have.

Lacey Mason is the Observing Systems and Advanced Technology Branch Chief at NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, her team manages a network of sensors aimed at keeping present day freighter crews aware of dangerous conditions.

That information wasn't available 50 years ago.

- At the time of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the only way a ship knew what the weather conditions that they were approaching was by VHF radio, radio in ships ahead of them, maybe the weather chart, the pressure map they got at port the day or two days or three days before, and listening to the Coast Guard's information coming across radio.

And, in fact, it was a job of one of the mates on the ships to plot the weather as they went along.

Nowadays, we can't imagine that, right?

- [Rob] Today, freighter captains are much better informed about the conditions they're facing.

(intriguing orchestral music) - I would say that in my humble opinion, the very best thing that came out of the Edmund Fitzgerald loss was the Weather Bureau stepping up to the program and really launching their system of weather forecasting, weather data collection, which is incredibly valuable to the lake skippers, but was not available.

They saw a requirement, they saw a problem, they got off their tail, and went out and fixed the problem.

- Over the past 50 years, we've had significant advancements in meteorology, and there's really three main things.

One is radar, we obviously can see precipitation not only just better, but we get more information from the radars than we used to get.

So, radar is number one, number two is computer models.

The computer models now give us not just better forecasting, but they give us more detail in these types of storms.

These storms like the storm that sank the Edmund Fitzgerald, these are not surprises anymore, you cannot be surprised by a storm like that these days.

And the third thing is communication.

- [Person On Radio] I feel good.

- [Rob] Today's freighter crews not only receive more information than they have in the past, they also get it right away.

Steve Ruberg is Observing Systems Researcher and Supervisor at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

- If we go back in time, the work that we've done to make shipping safer, it starts with observing systems that were used to measure waves, water temperature and air temperature, and then turn that into a model that said, "Here's how cold air over warm water really makes the waves bigger."

That was where non-real time systems were collecting data, we're making measurements, we're turning it into something that can represent that, and then that gets turned into a forecast.

The second part of it is that NOAA deployed two buoys that did those same things but did that in real-time.

- [Rob] Those first two real-time weather buoys came in 1979, just four years after the Edmund Fitzgerald sank.

Today, their numbers have grown, joining a vast network of observatories that feed continuous information into forecasting systems, giving sailors safer, more reliable guidance than ever before.

- Getting the data in real-time allows vessel captains to look out way beyond where they are now and know that if they go into that area they're taking a risk, it could be trouble.

It also helps them begin to understand how these systems set up.

(intriguing orchestral music) (worker speaking indistinctly) - [Rob] But there's still more work to do.

- I think the next vulnerability is really trying to get a handle on forecasting ice, ice thickness, helping the Coast Guard with their icebreaking mission by providing them products, but also keeping those freighter captains aware of where those concentrations of ice are, so they can safely deliver their product to their port.

- [Rob] Safety on the Great Lakes improved in yet another way: a shift in culture played a role.

Captains, owners, and the industry as a whole became more cautious.

- During the 1970s, shipping on the Great Lakes was really a go, go, go proposition.

The ore was loaded, it's due in Cleveland at a given time, and you've gotta try and make that time.

That made the lakes a difficult place when the gales of November came calling.

- We had a changeover, kind of a demographic blip, so to speak, in the '70s' and early '80s when a lot of captains who were trained in a time and educated culturally in a time when you brought the cargo to the dock, regardless of what the weather presented.

A lot of people call these "Heavy Weather Harrys," and many of them, many of them retired because they had reached that age of retirement.

And the new level of officers in the 1980s and '90s and 2000s, they just were more attuned to the issues of sailing in storms.

- When the storm is really blowing out there, they're gonna be in safe anchor, safe harbor, they're not going to be trying to buck the weather just to deliver the cargo.

(water burbling) (intriguing orchestral music) - [Rob] A 50 year run without a major tragedy doesn't mean sailing is without danger.

Accidents still happen reminding us that vigilance is always required whenever humans and water meet.

Recent events make that clear.

The 2024 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore that killed six, the 2025 Brooklyn Bridge collision that killed two, and the Michipicoten's hull failure in 2024, that could have been devastating in rougher weather.

- It's a difficult, demanding occupation, certainly takes skill, daring, and a little bit of good training too mixed into that configuration.

The Fitzgerald was a lesson, people learned the lesson, and now those changes that were made as a result are bearing the fruit of safe journeys, safe trips, and hopefully a continued tradition of sailing on the Great Lakes.

- The Fitzgerald was the last of the major accidents, and when we say accident, we're talking about a vessel going to the bottom of the lake with all of its crew.

The last one, there's really been 50 years of incredible safe sailing, and I think the reason for that is in part what happened with the Fitzgerald is that certain things were done.

(intriguing orchestral music) - [Rob] What lies ahead?

The future could bring even smarter ships and autonomous navigation, but with each advance comes new vulnerabilities, possibly an over-reliance on technology, a risk of cyber attacks, or systems failing when they're needed most.

And climate change presents its own challenges, with even stronger storms and shifting ice patterns testing our advancements.

- Climate change is causing an increase in extreme weather events.

We've basically put the atmosphere on steroids.

And nobody is saying we didn't have storms like this in the past, what we're saying is storms like that are becoming more frequent, these extreme weather events are becoming more frequent, and that does pose increased hazards to people on the water.

- [Chris] It is man against nature, and nature is powerful.

8,000 commercial vessels have sank, or had a significant loss over the past 300 years as a testament to that reality.

(air whooshing) (intriguing orchestral music) (air whooshing) - The freighters and passenger ships that sail the Great Lakes often need a gentle push in the right direction from a tugboat.

One of them has been operating for over 125 years.

- Permission to come aboard.

- Permission granted!

- [Mila] "Great Lakes Now" contributor, Kathy Johnson, brings us the story from Monroe, Michigan.

(classic mellow rock music) This is the tug America, built in 1897 by the Union Dry Dock Company in Buffalo, New York.

At a time when wooden sailing ships still ruled the waterways, the 83-foot steel-hulled America was a marvel of innovation and the talk of the lakes.

She's the oldest working tug boat on the Great Lakes, and today she operates out of the Port of Monroe on Michigan's Lake Erie shore, piloted by Captain Paul C. LaMarre III.

- There is nothing like this in the world.

She is the oldest commercially operating tugboat in the world today, and much of that is because of the fresh water on the Great Lakes.

This is living history.

With every turn of the propeller, the America goes one page further into the history books.

- [Mila] Assisting ships is the main task tugboats perform in the Great Lakes.

Whether a vessel has run aground, is having engine trouble, has lost a bow thruster, or just wants a little help navigating a challenging passageway, they call for a tug.

- [Captain LaMarre] When you need a tug, you really need one, and there's nothing else that will meet that need from a horsepower standpoint and a maneuverability standpoint.

(upbeat cinematic rock music) - [Mila] Tugboats spend the majority of their time doing ship assist, helping larger vessels maneuver.

- [Captain LaMarre] The tugboat is just a big locomotive in the water, literally a locomotive.

It offers the most advantageous scenario for maneuvering a ship in close quarters.

- [Mila] To do that, they have to closely coordinate with the ship they're assisting.

The tug captain will offer advice and local knowledge, but the ship captain is directing the operation.

- [Captain LaMarre] The ship will tell you how you hook up, whether you are going to have a line off your stern or off your bow, and/or what we call running free without a line.

And the amount of pressure, the location of the pressure, is all dictated by the captain of the ship.

It's a ballet, and you are operating the tug in partnership with the captain of the freighter, and you are carrying out their commands as to how to apply the tug.

And that's something that the deck officers on freighters have to learn is to how to properly utilize tug service.

- [Kathy] And so, is there like anywhere on the hull of a freighter that you can push against?

- That depends as well.

What's interesting is that the foreign flag vessels on the lakes, or the salties, you will notice spots on their hull that say "Tug", and it has an arrow, one forward, one aft, and that's typically based on where there is strong framing within the vessel for pushing.

(classic upbeat rock music) - [Mila] The America's engine can put out 1,250 horsepower, that's less than a 10th of the power of the Paul R. Tregurtha, currently, the longest freighter on the Lakes, but more than enough power to assist a large vessel by pushing against it, or pulling it with a tow line.

- In pushing, you typically are either holding a vessel up in current or pressing them into the dock.

A tow line is typically used for what would be a longer maneuver when you're, say, pulling someone off a dock, or taking them up the waterway, and guiding them around the turns.

You're there so that you can provide a little extra if a vessel in a turn starts to get behind on the turn or they overcompensate and get too far ahead.

The tug is really a tool in the toolkit of the master of the freighter.

The most important part of tug handling is being in position at the appropriate time.

Having a knowledge of the tow, the maneuverability of your vessel, having an expectation of where you should be to be most prepared for that next request from the vessel master.

- [Mila] But towing a huge freighter is a risky endeavor, and the fate of the tug and the crew are on the line.

- You'll notice that fore and aft on every tugboat to this day, you have an ax, a fire ax, and that ax is for cutting the tow line, because when you do get into a precarious position towing, which can happen for any number of different reasons, you need the ability to separate from that vessel very quickly.

(bright upbeat rock music) - [Mila] The America's diesel engine is the responsibility of chief Engineer Jay Downing.

He's been maintaining tugboat engines for 47 years.

- [Kathy] What's your favorite part in this room?

- Everything.

And that is a 12-cylinder, 567C, locomotive diesel engine that runs into a fault reduction gear.

- [Kathy] So when he said it was like a train, he's not joking.

It's literally a locomotive engine.

Like, it's actually... - It's a locomotive engine, but it's for the marine application.

- [Kathy] Okay.

And what do they have to do to make it work for a marine versus a train?

- Different kind of oil pan.

So when it's rough weather, it holds the oil in the bottom of the sump, if it goes off to one side- - Right.

- The oil doesn't run over and lose its suction.

That's what the inside of it- - Ooh, look at that.

- Its elements looks like.

- [Kathy] Ooh.

So pretty.

- That's the top end.

- [Kathy] Wow.

- And those are your injectors hiding underneath here behind.

These are a two-strokes, so, air in through the box- - Wow.

- It does its thing.

When she exhausts herself, she goes up the stacks.

- [Kathy] Is it just me or does this look really clean and shiny?

- Oh, that's the way they're supposed to be.

Let's say I blew a piston in here, I can literally take this whole assembly out- - Okay.

Okay.

- One at a time, and just... - Just repair it.

- There's four assemblies that's holding this thing.

- Okay.

Huh.

- You know, this is your fuel side, this is where your fuel comes in and out.

That runs your injectors right here.

- And all of that makes all this work- Pretty much.

- Basically.

(laughs) - Yep.

- It turns the blade and makes her go.

- Yeah, this supplies power to the reduction gear, which your reduction gear spins the wheel.

- [Mila] Captain LaMarre is a third generation tugman.

If you're interested in working on a tug, he can tell you what to expect.

- Even before you start working on the deck underway, you learn how to chip paint, and after you're done chipping paint, or doing any number of different odd jobs on the tugs, then you become a deckhand, you also have to be old enough.

So, when you become a deckhand, then you, of course, are learning from the more senior deckhands and able-bodied seamen as to what makes a tug run and most importantly safety.

Safety in a towing environment and an underway environment on these vessels, that's most important.

If I were advising a young person, would be to obtain your Merchant Mariner's credential.

Once you have that, it is the key to entry into a whole world that can start as a deckhand and end as you being captain of a thousand footer or a tugboat.

And the other route, of course, is going to one of the state maritime academies, whether it's Great Lakes Maritime in Traverse City or California, Maine, Massachusetts, Kings Point, Texas A&M, that immediately launches you to the level of deck or engineering officer.

And so, you come out of college with a license that allows you to be an officer aboard a ship of unlimited tonnage.

(upbeat orchestral music) - [Mila] Wherever you are in the Great Lakes, you're never too far from a tugboat.

- We have an operations center in Cleveland that is manned 24/7, 365, and every customer, which is almost every fleet on the Great Lakes, has that number in the pilot house.

And it is four hours' notice to have a tugboat at any port on the Great Lakes at any time.

- [Mila] There are newer and more powerful tugs on the Great Lakes, but Captain LaMarre is happy on the America.

- There is something about the old tugs that it's that bond between steel and spirit.

It's the smell of stale coffee, cigarettes, paint, and diesel that is magical.

If what we do with the America creates just a glimmer of interest from new generations or honors those that have already been part of it, then that's the most important job that this tug could have.

(groovy orchestral upbeat music) (air whooshing) (intriguing orchestral music) (air whooshing) - Thanks for watching.

For more about any of the stories in this show, visit GreatLakesNow.org.

When you get there, you can follow us on social media or subscribe to our newsletter to get updates about our work.

(air whooshing) (techno upbeat music) (air whooshing) - [Announcer] This program was brought to you by: the Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Richard C. Devereaux Foundation for Energy and Environmental Programs at Detroit PBS, Polk Family Fund, DTE Foundation, and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(groovy orchestral music) (bright chiming music)