Good Lord I can smell him.............
Posted on 04/17/2005 4:50:14 AM PDT by Rebelbase
A "freak wave" more than 70 feet high slammed a luxury cruise ship steaming for New York yesterday, flooding cabins, injuring passengers and forcing the liner to stop for emergency repairs.
The Norwegian Dawn, an opulent ocean liner almost 1,000 feet long, limped into Charleston, S.C., yesterday afternoon after it hit vicious seas in an overnight storm off Florida - then was creamed by the rogue wave after dawn.
"[My room] was destroyed by stuff getting thrown all over the place," passenger James Fraley, of Keansburg, N.J., told NBC News before embarking on the 12-hour drive home because he didn't want to set foot on the ship again.
"It was pure chaos."
The ship, which sailed from New York last Sunday with 2,500 passengers, had been due back today.
It weathered most of a wild storm that featured gale-force winds and choppy seas. But then the vessel, longer than three football fields, was suddenly smacked by the "freak wave," said Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Susan Robison. It broke a pair of windows and flooded 62 cabins, she said.
"The sea had actually calmed down when the wave seemed to come out of thin air at daybreak," Robison said. "Our captain, who has 20 years on the job, said he never saw anything like it."
The tidal wave wrecked windows on the ninth and 10th floors and wreaked havoc below decks, destroying furniture, the onboard theater, and a store that sold expensive gifts.
It also injured four passengers and terrified scores more, many of whom lost belongings and were being flown back to New York early this morning.
"My daughter said people were freaking out," said Mel Blanck, 74, whose daughter, Caren Hogan, 42, of Matawan, N.J., was vacationing aboard with her family. "She said some doors were ripped off and broken glass was everywhere."
In a message Hogan left on her parents' voice mail, she said her ship "feels like the Titanic" and described "water running everywhere, with people getting hurt and panicking."
"She felt lucky that she and her children weren't hurt," said Blanck, whose daughter had called from South Carolina last night. "She's calm now, but she said it was a nightmare."
The floating city of a ship, which was commissioned in 2002, left New York a week ago for Orlando, Miami and the Bahamas. It had started heading home when it ran into the wicked weather.
During the storm, one frightened passenger called a relative who relayed the information to the Coast Guard, which escorted the ship into Charleston yesterday.
"The ocean is unforgiving; it doesn't care who is out there," said Petty Officer Bobby Nash of the Coast Guard in Florida. "This could have happened to anyone."
Repairs were done last night, and the ship resumed it's voyage around midnight after a team of Coast Guard inspectors gave it approval.
Many of the Norwegian Dawn's passengers remained on the ship while it was readied for the sea again, Robison said. The battered vessel is expected to return to New York tomorrow.
All passengers would be given a partial refund, a credit for a future trip and access to the ship's open bar, Robison said.
Rogue storm waves only last for a few seconds; they're caused by several normal storm waves that happen to get "in synch" for a brief period of time.
I have no idea! Where does it go? Just keep rolling on until it hits a shore somewhere? Maybe someone can answer that. Maybe it calms down on it's own. I truly don't know where a wave of that magnitude ends up.
Quite a proud ship to have survived a 70-foot wave. I bet its architect must feel ten feet tall today!
Thank you Rebel. Like the one poster ask......where on earth does a wave like that end up? Does it just fizzle out or what?
Good Lord I can smell him.............
I couldn't believe the devastation. I can still see the photos in my mind's eye. Just sickening. And frightening.
Didn't this happen to the QE2 about a year ago, and didn't they see it coming? Caught it on RADAR as I recall. Wonder why this one sneaked up on them?
A partial refund for a freak sea--wow, what an age we live in. Someone must ALWAYS pay.
Other contributing factor can be a strong current; Gulf Stream fits the bill, particularly if winds are against the current.
The most rogue waves in the world are between Madagascar and South Africa in the Agulhas current, which is even faster than the Gulf Stream.
I get seasick on the local riverboats in Pittsburgh! I give my mother credit for enduring 3 transatlantic boat trips in the 1950's&60's. A few months ago, a large cruise ship was disabled near Hawaii. There were a bunch of Pitt students on it attending "Semester at Sea". I think think were quite a few injuries on that ship.
Can these things be seen on radar? Not in time to turn the ship probably, but in time to tell folks to brace?
Nope. They may only last 10 seconds or so.
A long history of killer crests
Rogue waves like the one that slammed into the Norwegian Dawn yesterday are more common and more dangerous than scientists first thought.
The waves, which can reach 15 to 80 feet high, have been responsible for the loss of more than 200 ships - including giant tankers and container vessels - in the past 20 years.
They also have caused damage to countless others, contradicting the long-held belief that only rare meteorological events could create the moving mountains of water. In fact, radar-based images last summer revealed 10 such waves in just a three-week period in the Atlantic Ocean.
In January, one such renegade wave smashed into the research vessel Explorer carrying nearly 1,000 people, including hundreds of students on a semester at sea program about 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage in the Pacific Ocean.
The mammoth wave reared up in a voyage already wracked by storms, shattering windows on the 600-foot ship's bridge and shutting down three of its four engines.
Crews were forced to herd passengers into the center of the ship, which eventually limped into Hawai.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/300795p-257522c.html
It probably dissipated shortly after doing its thing on the cruise ship. A "freak" wave is called that because it's the product of two or more wave-generating sources -- two storms, for example -- that send out waves and they pile up on one another. This may have been a storm that sent out a forty-foot wave that encountered a thirty-foot wave from another storm that piled up on it and they traveled together for a while. Result: a 70-foot wave. But only temporary.
In 1965, my cruise ship to Vietnam, the USNS Gordon, was laid into by one of those at night while we were watching a movie on deck (Lawrence of Arabia); it was terrifying. I thought we were going to capsize.
Basically with these things there's enough time for a lookout to say "Oh Shi..." before it hits.
Glad I'm a landlubber :)
Thanks for the info. I was thinking of a standard wave. I forgot about resonant waves.
There actually are some pictures of a few of these on the net (and some of the damage wrought); if I didn't have to leave for a fencing tournament right now I'd post some.
They're out there if you search on rogue waves though; One off South Carolina I remember. Some from South Africa.
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