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December 08, 2006
Shipwreck - A Historical Documentary Including 3D in Google Earth
On November 10, 1975 the SS Edmund Fitzgerald - a lake freighter - sank suddenly in a gale storm while on Lake Superior. According to Wikipedia:
The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9'N 85°6.6'W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot's hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping."
Back when GE was still called Keyhole, a forum member called 'Hill' posted a placemark showing the location of the shipwreck and some background infromation and history. Read the thread for lots of interesting details.
Now, one of our more prolific GE community 3D modelers, 'jpwade', has posted a 3D model of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald 
restoring her to brand-new glory. He also created a collection of image overlays and a bathymetric vector contour of the area where the wreckage was found . Some of the data came from the US Coast Guard.
And, to add a sense of what it might be like, 'jpwade' created an animation of how the conditions might have been before the sinking. This innovative GE 4-only time animation shows the ship plowing through with giant waves. Great work 'jpwade'!
Related: Visible Shipwrecks Around the Earth.
Posted by FrankTaylor at December 8, 2006 09:06 AM
Comments
Posted by: DEVO at December 8, 2006 08:22 PM
Hello Frank,
Being a sailor, we acknowledge risk with each journey and accept some of our fates come sooner than we expect.
In honor of the ship and her crew i will say .... even while thinking of their plight,
I get a yearning for being back on the big blue dot. (at sea standing atop the wheelhouse seeing nothing except blue water in 360 deg.)
Merci Bookoo (many thanks)for the Blog entry.
jpwade
Posted by: jpwade at December 11, 2006 01:33 AM
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The Edmund Fitzgerald as I think about the name and I reflect on a Gordon Lightfoot song, putting the two together I feel the intense beauty of the mother ship and the melody and feel like, Ya,, it was worth getting out of bed this morning...... Thanks. Although tragic, traumatic, and devastating, Isent good thoughts and prayers that way.
DEVO
THE KAUAI PRINCESS FROM CALIFORNIA!