Strange & Unusual Shipwrecks on the Great Lakes

by Wayne Louis Kadar

"The Great Lakes are notorious for storms which can produce hurricane force winds, blinding snow, and tremendous seas"..."the cause and results of some Great Lakes maritime mishaps are interesting and educational due to conditions that surround the event."

201 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Rebes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loooved the stories, but it desperately needed some serious proofreading for spelling and grammar! very very interesting local history!

[April Helms · Rating 4 out of 5]

My parents bought this for me on their vacation. All in all, I really enjoyed this book -- local history and shipwrecks, two of my interests. Kadar has a nice narrative style that's easy to read, and the stories don't get bogged down by too many numbers. The more technical terms are ither explained in the article, or included in the glossary in the back. It also has decent maps and graphs throughout. Some of my favorite stories included the takes about the E.M. Ford (which met its misfortune, with more than 7,000 tons of dry cement mix in its cargo. Dry mix-- which got wet. You can take it from there); and the story about the Yacht Gunilda, where the millionaire owner's thick-headedness and tight-fistedness not only caused his expensive toy to wreck, but become unsalvagable. I found the tragic story of the SS Eastland to be interesting, but it made me angry -- sounds like the ship needed to be overhauled long before the fateful summer of 1915 incident which would claim the lives of more than 800 people. I have to say "incident" rather than "journey" because the ship never even left the dock before turning on its side. This disaster remains the worst Great Lakes ship disaster in terms of casualties.
There were some editing issues. For example, one mention of the Eastland (which is mentioned in the story about a WWI German sub, which it sank, under its new name the SS Wilmette), said 814 people died in the Eastland disaster; later in the book it's 815. Then I saw "sole" instead of "soul" and a cargo of "flower" instead of "flour." Also, while I understand there is no way a book can get all of the stories on every Great Lakes wreck, I found the omission of the tale of the Marquette & Bessemer No. 2 a bit odd. This large steamship was lost during a particularly nasty storm in December 1909. All that was ever found was a lifeboat with nine of the crew, dead from the bitter cold. The ship itself has never been found, to date. This was not a tiny tugboat either. Don't recall the specs of the ship, but it was carrying train cars, among other cargo.