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To: corkoman
Or if you were floating with a rubber duck ring and fell into the trough, you would be looking up at a 90' wall. It seems likely to me that there are few FIXED objects subject to waves like this. Mostly they would be floating objects like ships. I used the buildings as an example of scale.

Ships have been hit by waves almost this big and survived.

http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf109/sf109p11.htm

September 11, 1995. North Atlantic. Aboard the Queen Elizabeth II enroute from Cherbourg to New York.

During this crossing of the Atlantic, the Queen Elizabeth II had to change course to avoid Hurricane Luis. Despite this precaution, the vessel encountered seas of 18 meters with occasional higher crests. At 0400 the Grand Lounge windows, 22 meters above the water, stove in. But this was only a precursor.

"At 0410 the rogue wave was sighted right ahead, looming out of the darkness from 220°, it looked as though the ship was heading straight for the white cliffs of Dover. The wave seemed to take ages to arrive but it was probably less than a minute before it broke with tremendous force over the bow. An incredible shudder went through the ship, followed a few minutes later by two smaller shudders. There seemed to be two waves in succession as the ship fell into the 'hole' behind the first one. The second wave of 28-29 m (period 13 seconds), whilst breaking, crashed over the foredeck, carrying away the forward whistle mast.

..... "Captain Warwick admits that sometimes it can be difficult to gauge the height of a wave, but in this case the crest was more or less level with the line of sight for those on the bridge, about 29 m above the surface; additionally, the officers on the bridge confirmed that it was definitely not a swell wave. The presence of extreme waves was also recorded by Canadian weather buoys moored in the area, and the maximum measured height from buoy 44141 was 30 m (98 feet.)"

68 posted on 06/17/2005 9:44:26 AM PDT by finnman69 (cum puella incedit minore medio corpore sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos)
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To: finnman69
Wow. In 1986 we boarded the QEII in NYC for an 8-day Caribbean cruise. The ship had just returned from a rough transatlantic crossing...the evening before our trip, on the 5:00 news, there was the QEII, pulling into the harbor, ambulances waiting at the pier to greet injured passengers. Apparently, people were so tossed around that many broke arms and legs. We sailed on schedule, but huge dining room windows were boarded up with plywood.
97 posted on 06/22/2005 7:47:22 AM PDT by EnquiringMind
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