WHITEFISH POINT, Mich. -- Deborah Champeau-Felder stood silently as the bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald clanged in memory of her father, one of 29 mariners who perished when the ore carrier sank in a vicious Lake Superior storm 30 years ago.
As the sound faded Thursday, she kissed her hand and laid it gently on the bell.
"It's the soul of the ship, it's the soul of my dad," Champeau-Felder, daughter of assistant engineer Oliver J. Champeau, later said. "It's something I can't let go of."
The 47-year-old resident of Nashotah, Wis., was among hundreds who attended a memorial at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, the nearest spot on land to the Fitzgerald gravesite 17 miles northwest.
The 729-foot freighter was caught in a catastrophic gale and sank Nov. 10, 1975, after taking on a load of iron ore at Superior, Wis.
Family members and survivors of other ship wrecks rang the bell one by one as names of the lost men were called, a ceremony known as "Call to the Last Watch."
No bodies were ever been recovered and the cause of the sinking is still debated.
"There were modern aids to navigation, good weather forecasting ... and yet a 729-foot ship disappears without a cry for help or survivors," said Tom Farnquist, executive director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society. "The mystery prevails today."
Capt. Ernest McSorley had radioed the a trailing freighter and said the Fitzgerald had topside damage and was listing. At 7:10 p.m., he told the freighter's first mate, "We are holding our own." It was the last anyone heard from the Fitzgerald.
The ship plunged 530 feet to the bottom. Diving expeditions later determined the freighter had broken into two large sections, its cargo strewn along the lake floor. The bronze bell was recovered by divers in 1995.
The tragedy was commemorated in singer Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 hit, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
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On the Net:
Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum: http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com
