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Captain Dudley J. Paquette
Dudley's Great Lakes sailing career began at 16 in his boyhood home of Marquette, Michigan. After serving on the seas during World War II, he spent 30 years as an officer with Inland Steel Company.
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Captain Dudley J. Paquette
Dudley was a happy master after taking command of Inland Steel Company's Wilfred Sykes. He loaded opposite the Edmund Fitzgerald in Superior, Wisconsin, on November 9, 1975 – the day before the disaster.
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Paul L. Hayden / Lake Superior Magazine
Captain Dudley J. Paquette
Dudley, whose Wilfred Sykes helped search for survivors in the aftermath of the Edmund Fitzgerald disaster, collaborated on The Night the Fitz Went Down by Hugh Bishop. He signs copies of the book, published by Lake Superior Magazine and soon to be printed for a seventh time, in this 2005 photo.
Captain Dudley J. Paquette, who served for 30 years as an officer in the Inland Steel Company fleet and was on Lake Superior as captain of the Wilfred Sykes on the day the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, passed away peacefully on Saturday, May 17, at the Franciscan Home in Crown Point, Indiana. He was 88.
Dudley was born in Marquette, Michigan, in 1925 and began his sailing career on the Great Lakes as a 16-year-old deckhand. Looking for summer work after his sophomore year of high school, he biked down to the Marquette ore docks and asked for a job. The captain of the freighter Chacornac was hiring and gave Dudley an hour to gather his things. Dudley hurried home, packed "and begged my uncle for a ride back to the boat," he told writer Hugh Bishop in The Night the Fitz Went Down, published by Lake Superior Magazine. "Grandma didn't like this at all, but Uncle Ray told her I'd never last on the boats, so she let me go. That's how it all started."
By the time he retired in 1980, he had captained every Inland Steel vessel.
He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was a licensed Marine Officer and Master of Steam & Motor Vehicles of the U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Marines. Dudley was also a longtime member of the Duluth-Superior Propeller Club and a lifetime member of the Elks.
His Sykes was on Lake Superior the day the Fitzgerald sank. Dudley's account of that tragic, stormy day became The Night the Fitz Went Down, a book that also detailed his opinion on and analysis of the Fitz's demise. (He thought negligence contributed to the wreck.) It will soon be printed for a seventh time, which we're sure would have delighted the captain.
He was renowned on the Great Lakes for his weather forecasting and maintained meticulous weather charts, which he used not just to avoid or prepare for bad weather. While captain of the new Joseph L. Block, he once loaded the vessel in Escanaba with – seemingly – far too much cargo to clear the ship canal at Indiana Harbor.
As Dudley told Hugh Bishop, "My analysis was that we'd be sailing all the way down in a steady north wind that would push water to the south end of Lake Michigan at Indiana Harbor, where it would pile up and give me enough draft in the channel and harbor to be able to get to the dock.
"As we came in and made our turn for the dock, a tug from Great Lakes Towing Company actually came alongside and checked our draft lines, because they couldn't believe anyone would load that deep, but the tug captain gave me a big grin and waved after he saw that we were not only loaded that deep, but that we were probably going to make it to the dock without assistance."
After retiring from Inland Steel, Dudley took jobs with the Western Great Lakes Pilots Association piloting salties entering the Lakes, hopping from ship to ship and city to city. A 20-foot fall from a faulty ladder would end his second career just 56 days after it started. After recovering from his life-threatening injuries, he built a log cabin on Lake Vermilion in northeastern Minnesota and settled into retirement, for good.
In his later years, he lived in Las Vegas and, finally, near family in Indiana.
Dudley is survived by his children Gary J. (Maria) Paquette of Las Vegas, Nevada, Daniel J. (Deanna) Paquette of Henderson, Nevada, Patricia (Steve) Gyure of Crown Point, Indiana, and Catherine Brandner of East Chicago, Indiana; grandchildren Jennifer (Jason) Luery, Jessica (Adam) Peiken, Nicole Cisz, Myles Rapchak, Dudley Paquette II, Siena Gyure and Ashley Brandner; and 3 great-grandchildren.