2 halves of this 600-foot freighter rest 6 miles apart at the bottom of Lake Huron

• Justine Lofton | [email protected]

This behemoth steel ship split in half and sank to the bottom of Lake Huron 58 years ago, during the gales of November.

The two halves of the S.S. Daniel J. Morrell came to rest 6 miles from each other under 200 feet of water near Michigan’s thumb.

First launched out of Bay City in 1906, the ship sailed the Great Lakes for 60 years, hauling iron ore and other cargo, before it met its fate.

On Nov. 29, 1966, the Morrell was on its final run of the season when it came upon a mighty storm but pressed on. Made of brittle, early-20th-century steel, the ship was no match for what were, by some accounts, waves over 25 feet and winds reaching 60 miles an hour.

The ship was battered by the elements and eventually split apart, coming to rest miles apart off the eastern tip of Michigan’s Thumb.

There were 29 crew members. Only a 26-year-old watchman named Dennis Hale survived. He was rescued after floundering in a life raft for nearly 40 hours. The ship’s captain, Arthur I. Crawley; First Mate Phil Kaptis and Second Mate Duncon McCloud froze to death in the same life raft. Unlike the others, Hale had donned a peacoat over his life jacket.

In the days after the shipwreck, The Bay City Times interviewed Hale, detailing his recollections.

“As we were floating out on this raft we could see the two halves hitting each other,” he said. ”They had separated, and the back part still had power and kept ramming the front part. She buckled, and she sank.

“About 15 minutes after we got on the raft, the ship went down. The last thing to go down was the stern. I saw it slowly slip into the dark waters.”

His companions died the next day.

Snow kept falling. Raging winds tossed the raft like a stick.

“The sea was a terrible rage,” he said. “There was no sunshine.”

Hale slipped in and out of consciousness. But he roused when a helicopter appeared Wednesday, nearly 36 hours after he boarded the raft.

Hale lived to be 75; he died in September 2015 after fighting cancer.

The ship remains at the bottom of Lake Huron, north of the Thumb Area Bottomland Preserve

source : .mlive.com