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At 7:10 p.m., Cooper left the wheelhouse to get his pipe. While he was gone, Clark radio the Fitzgerald to tell McSorley about a vessel moving out of Whitefish Bay.
Anderson: Fitzgerald, this is the Anderson. Have you checked down?
Fitzgerald: Yes we have.
Anderson: Fitzgerald, we are about 10 miles behind you, and gaining about 1½ miles per hour. Fitzgerald, there’s a target 19 miles ahead of us. So the target is 9 miles ahead.
Fitzgerald: Well, am I going to clear?
Anderson: Yes, he is going to pass to the west of you.
Fitzgerald: Well, fine.
Just as First Mate Clark was going to sign off, he added:
Anderson: Oh, by the way, how are you making out with your problem?
Fitzgerald: We are holding our own.
Anderson: Okay, fine. I will be talking to you later.
Soon after this exchange, Captain Cooper returned to the pilothouse and Clark told him what McSorley had said. At that point, the Fitzgerald was about 14 miles away from the safety of Whitefish Bay—just a little over 90 minutes’ sailing time.
Cooper looked at the Anderson’s radar screen and saw that the high seas and snow squalls were distorting the radar signals. Because of the distortion, the center of the radar scope soon became a “white blob,” and the radar blip that had been representing the Fitzgerald disappeared into it.
At around 7:25 p.m., the snow squall stopped and the radar screen cleared. The Fitzgerald blip, however, did not return to the screen. As Cooper later explained, “I called the Fitzgerald on the FM and I got no response. The mate tried to call him several times.”
Like Cooper, Clark received no reply. Where was the Fitzgerald?
