He and Zee set a record for the deepest scuba dive on the Great Lakes, and the deepest scuba dive on a shipwreck. Prior to that, a handful of expeditions -- Jacques Cousteau in among them -- had involved heavy dive suits, remotely operated vehicles and submersibles.
But scuba? Too deep, everyone said. Zee, a student of Tysall's, thought differently. The two picked a date, arranged a team and drove a small pickup truck from Florida to Michigan, taking turns sleeping on the oxygen tanks in the truck bed.
When they arrived in the Upper Peninsula, the weather gave them a window of one morning when the water was millpond calm for the expedition. All told, it took about six minutes to descend and three hours to ascend from the shipwreck using a "trimix" gas mixture.
Between that, Tysall and Zee spent a grand total of 15 minutes on the bottom with the wreck. On the lake bed, the pair saw a hull towering above them, illuminated by heavy-duty lights they'd dropped on a camera line. The lights gave them about 60 feet of visibility on the bow area and of the iron ore scattered around the bottom. They floated up the hull side, past the words "Edmund Fitzgerald," to the pilothouse. Due to the strict dive timeframe, Tysall and Zee didn't get as much time as they would have liked to explore the shipwreck.
Every minute on the bottom at that depth lengthens the time needed to decompress on the ascent. The duo had a finite amount of breathable gas mixture, and Lake Superior allows little room for error.
Image of the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck taken during a dive in to recover the ship's bell. Just before leaving, Tysall reached out and grasped the port side rail with two neoprene-gloved hands.
It suddenly sank around 17 miles from Whitefish Bay. Although the captain of the Fitzgerald reported having difficulties during the storm, no distress signals were sent.
The entire crew of 29 people died when the vessel sank. No bodies were ever recovered from the wreckage. Later when the wreck was found, it was discovered that the ship had broken in two. It still sits on the bottom of Lake Superior at feet deep. Conditions on the Great Lakes can be extremely treacherous and can produce high waves. Steep, short-period waves can be particularly hazardous to large ships such as the Fitzgerald, especially when they exceed 5 meters 16 feet in height.
The height of waves generated on the lakes is primarily a function of wind speed and the fetch, or distance, over which they are generated. Of secondary yet substantial importance is the degree of surface-layer stability present over the lake.
Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes in surface area and volume. It has the capacity to contain the water volume of the four other lakes plus three additional Lake Eries. Given its immense size, it is capable of sustaining waves in excess of 10 meters 33 feet , about the height of a four-story home. During the early morning of November 9, , a low-pressure system began to take shape in the southern plains. This storm would move northeast and intensify considerably over the next 36 hours as it moved into the Great Lakes region.
During that time, the Edmund Fitzgerald and another vessel, the Arthur M. Manage consent. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.
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