Rogue Waves: The All-Too-Real Tsunamis of the Seas

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[mauriceprendeville]

Hi Sideprojects,
I am a commercial fisherman from NZ. I have spent most of my life down the southern ocean, between the bottom of NZ and Antarctica. There are several areas down that way where we frequently experienced waves in excess of 30 meters. How did we know, well the aft gantry on my vessel is 28 meters high and these waves exceeded the gantry by a large amount. These waves were generated over a very deep ridge running south of NZ whereby the current would run up the ridge then force the waves to boil over the ridge (this ridge averages 800 meters below the surface) I have personally seen on a flat calm day the sea boiling like a river on top of this ridge. We took these findings to NIWA, (NZ Governmental scientific institute) who placed wave buoys on these ridges and recorded waves of around 29 meters on a regular bases.
Welcome to my world, it sucks!
Maurice

[Rollermonkey]

I was a Quartermaster in the US Navy for 20 years and did actually get to see a rogue wave once. I was on an LHA, and we'd just gotten underway from Freemantle, Australia, and there was a tropical cyclone to the west-southwest. Average wave height was 18-20 feet, but then we climbed one wave, pitched down, and the bow slammed into the next one, which was much, much bigger. We estimated it was somewhere between 60-70 feet tall, and we took green water over the bow, (flight deck about 60' above waterline) which snapped some of the aircraft holdown chains on the forward spots. The bridge (100' height of eye above the waterline) was slammed with a wall of whitewater, which shattered two windows. One of the hatches in the foc'sle for linehandling was pushed in by the force of the impact with the wave. Even the signalmen up on the signal bridge (120' height of eye) called down to the bridge to ask what we had just happened, because the spray reached all the way up to them.

So, I do like to hear the part where scientists didn't believe sailors' tales of rogue waves.

[ajm]

I'm waiting for the Simon Whistler YouTube singularity, when the combined minutes of Simon's daily YouTube content exceeds the number of minutes in a day. The chances of this event ripping apart the fabric of spacetime are low, but not zero.

[aquilarossa]

That NZ warship clip in the video is the Southern Ocean where I worked for over 12 years. Waves over 20 meters are common down there. Winds over 100 knots are too. The bridge on the ship in my thumbnail is on the fifth deck above the waterline. It was not uncommon to be looking up from the bridge at the crest of the oncoming wave, rather than looking down at it. Heading up the wave makes your legs feel like they weigh tons, while heading back down the other side of the wave can make you feel weightless, so you can go up a stairwell between decks with a single step.

The g-force is very tiring. You kind of learn to move with the motion of the ocean, so it knackers you out less. Only about one in five at best cope and work out there for years. Most people can not shake the tiredness in those conditions. I am not sure why. It's not a being tough thing, because plenty of tough people break and never sail again. It's something else. Maybe to do with balance and also to do with being able to find your second wind over and over for weeks on end.

Rogue waves can happen in calm seas though. Flat conditions and then out of nowhere a big wave slaps the side of the ship.

[jubbelidiot]

Before I started sailing professionally I was a trainee onboard Training Ship Danmark, this was in 2006, and I will never forget one the nightshifts I had as a trainee.

Rotation had me at the wheel, with the bridge right behind me when I noticed a large, dark shadow on the starboard side of the ship. Alerting the on duty officers, they told me to hook in, and started warning everyone else on duty to do the same. I was also told to change heading 30 degrees towards starboard. After the wave passed we had been pushed 45 degrees of the original course towards port side. I can't say exactly how big the wave was, but at least 20m tall probably significantly taller than that. It seemed almost as tall as the rigging of the ship. If I hadn't hooked my harness into the ship, I would have been washed straight of the ship.

[walttrotter]

As a young man I worked on ships that traversed the Pacific, Panama Canal, and Gulf of Mexico. As far as I was concerned they're all rogue waves and pretty goddamn scary. Ships look big tied up in the harbor but boy they are small out at sea.

[johnpavan]

In one of the early seasons of 'deadliest catch' one of the crab boats is hit by a rogue wave. It happened at night, so it's all footage of the aftermath. Several of the crew members also told stories about seeing other crab boats suddenly swallowed by the see. Ships going down with all the lights still on etc.

[Aztesticals]

I was on a cruise ship passing about 100 miles off cape Hatteras and we were having waves up the third public floors windows so like 30ft. And then out of nowhere it looked like a small mountain in front of the ship. And the whole front of the ship dipped far enough to feel it in the midsection and I and half of the people got thrown onto our backs. It smacked up against the 7th floor windows. The buffet was closed from broken plates and stuff thrown around. Games were ripped from the wall in the arcade and moved accross the room. Basicly everything in the ship was thrown backwards and then forwards like posideon was just playing boats in the bath. I still swear if that wave hit the side of the ship instead of headon there would have been a story on world news about us being capsized

[Lorgs]

I can account for having experienced a minor rogue wave. I work on a 15m search and rescue boat in Norway, and one day early this year we went out on an exercise. We drove out to an area subjected to the waves and wind from the open ocean, and the wave height was around an average of 2 meters. Not enough that we had to slow down, so we went at over 30 knots, and suddenly we went over a wave that had to be at least 5 meters tall. I could count the seconds we were airborne. Hit the water again so hard it knocked out one of the engines, and even with air suspension seats I hurt my back from the impact

[willh]

Rogue waves have been part of Irish folklore forever. And not even in the distant past. As was mentioned in this video most people dont actually live to tell the tale but the Irish Sea has had multiple examples of both direct hits and near misses. No doubt much more research will be done but I'd suggest countries such as Ireland, Portugal, South Africa etc are great places to just sit and watch!

[JohnDrummondPhoto]

So, in the end, rogue waves are random events with exact causes still unknown to us. Sounds like ... chaos. Dr. Ian Malcolm is vindicated once again.

[sethmaki]

Oceans aren't the only places you can find rogue waves. They've also been known to occur on Lake Superior from time to time.

[rnedlo]

As a boy I was fishing with my father on off the SW coast of Block Island, RI, USA. There was a storm a few hundred miles out to sea and large swells were rolling in probably the best guess I would say 30'-40' swells. We would drift towards shore allowing the prevailing wind to push us and when almost too close my father would start the boat and go back out a half mile or so to drift in again while we cast lures. We came to the end of a drift, just as my father was starting the motor I noticed two waves in an angle coming towards us but they merged and we went from rising to 30' to over 50' on the top of that wave. The scariest part was it was not straight but 'bowed' with us in the middle of that bow so the wave broke right under us, with our boat just narrowly falling back instead of down the front of the braking wave. It was the largest wave I had ever encountered and I was a commercial fisherman. I never want to be on top of a wave like that again.

[martinlanders]

I think you need to do a MEGA Projects episode on Simon Whistler’s YouTube career!

[witchy]

I know science and anecdotes dont always go together, as you cant refute science with an anecdote. But this is one of those cases where I have always been like "If the men who all they do is live, breathe, and sleep sea, consistently, for centuries at this point, talk about massive waves of murderous water, it should be something to not just say "Well math says they dont exist".

[jessegriffin]

Having served as crew aboard a 60 foot fishing trawler in May of 1970 out of Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, SC, we were about 300 miles out in the Atlantic, when a northwest storm caught up to us that really made for a wild ride. I would have to estimate the waves were at least 40 feet high, but strangely the troughs were at least 70 feet deep. The helmsman quartered the course we were on. This lasted for about four hours, and I'm glad I had the experience of being in a storm at sea, and I never ever want to experience it again.

[FairbrookWingates]

The idea of a rogue hole in the water scares me at least as much. Not necessarily logical, because obviously you can drown from a wave, but the idea of falling down into the water, deep, deep into the water, terrifies me.

[DeanStephen]

In 2005 a ship I was on was hit broadside by such a wave. It only punched out a single porthole on the fifth deck of the ship but it did so with enough force to rip the ceiling material off a single stateroom, shatter all the glass in the room, bow the entry door two feet into the passageway, and flood almost half the ship’s fifth deck with salt water. Astoundingly, despite having their stateroom flooded almost completely full of water, the couple in the room survived with mostly minor injuries. By morning, the ship had the guests effected relocated to upgraded accommodations and the carpet on half an entire deck replaced. The efficiency of the response was impressive.

[paulmahy]

Been at sea for over forty years, loads of these waves around, I've sailed round the world and they're everywhere. There is footage from the Caledonian Vigilence ERRV in the North sea where she takes a 100+ footer and footage from other standby vessels where they just let the camera run in a storm like bigwavemaster1, there are constant huge seas, often appearing in a different direction to the main swell.

[garrettrice]

Great video!!! As a professional mariner my heart is with all those who have the courage to face and find balance with our planets most volatile environment. And to anyone who doubts the warning of a sailor i dare you then to walk in their shoes. It may be easy to judge from shore.

Fair winds and seas my friends