DETROIT – The state of Michigan is giving up ownership of a rare relic from the famous Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck , just weeks after it strangely obtained it through a settlement in a lawsuit that was completely unrelated to the doomed freighter.

Larry Orr is getting one of the ship’s life rings back – and the state will still pay $600,000 to settle his lawsuit over police misconduct.

“I feel a whole lot better,” Orr, 77, said.

In 1975, eight days after the Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior , killing all 29 men, Orr said he found the life ring and a piece of a lifeboat on shore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

“There was an eerie feeling. Maybe someone had survived,” he recalled. “I looked around for footprints or any other sign of life for a while and never found anything.”

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