Mystery of monster waves solved

Electronic Telegraph ^ | January 6, 2002 | By Tony Paterson in Berlin

[mad_as_he$$]

About 6 years ago I was able to tour the Carl Vinson. The petty officer in charge of the anchors told me that on their last tour she took blue water over the flight deck. The deck is 95 feet over the water when fully loaded. Musta been one heck of a ride.

[Texas_Jarhead]

LOL!

[Grut]

My God! Is that an old shot of Rush in drag?

[Calvin Locke]

The Soviets/CIS have a torpedo that supposedly bursts underneath an aircraft carrier to create a 'keel-breaking' gap effect. One of the CIS sold some to the Chinese...

Recall a story about the QE2 being hit bow on one night by a wave created by a hurricane hundreds of miles away. I think they said the height was 90 feet, given the fact that it hit the bridge.

Miraculously, no one was on deck at the time, before, or after. Of course, some things were missing, others things bent.

[beerhead]

"Yet until now scientists and oceanographers had been unable to determine exactly what formed such gigantic "one-off" seas that are capable of breaking a 600ft-long ship in half and sending it to the bottom within seconds. "

NUTS! I read about concoidal-rogue waves in Scientific American back in the 1970's.

[WriteOn]

Is that Rosie O'Donnell???

[Travis McGee]

I would be happy to never see a wave over 20' high ever in my life.

Before this new theory came out, I always worried about the fast storm which changes the wind direction radically in 10-20 hours, leaving a set of (say) 30 foot waves crossing a set of 20' waves at about 90*, creating big crazy waves and super deep troughs with no warning. "Fastnet Force Ten" from 1979 or the "Queen Anne's Storm" between NZ and Fiji a few years ago are two famous examples we have read about.

[MississippiMan]

I wouldn't even have thought a total of 200 ships would've sunk in the past 20 years!

MM

[Leisler]

Ok, so I was drinking a'bit, and we went out to my car for a while, but seriously, she's a very nice.

[Yeti]

I saw some amazing sh*t on LSD, too.

But no waves.

[PatrioticAmerican]

Wave theory always seemed so common sense. Waves building on waves. Any sailor has seen this happen at least on a small scale. I have been in calm open sea and have watched a 30 foot swell travel across from no where, and have been in 15 foot swells when a single 20-30 foot breaker washes by.

[AZLiberty]

Interesting that this comes on the heels of a recent article offering a mathematical explanation for why buses seem to arrive in clumps rather than evenly spaced. The explanation was that, if a bus ever had any reason to slow down, then additional passengers would accumulate at stops in front of it so that it would slow down even more at each successive stop. Furthermore, the gap between this bus and the one behind it would decrease so that the second bus would see fewer passengers at each stop. Hence the second bus would start accelerating at the same time that the first bus was slowing down, until the two buses were practically on top of each other.

A similar thing must happen with waves.

[Michael Barnes]

Hehe...I always laugh when I think the Navy named a class of ship LSD...

[BluH2o]

Sailed from MA to Gibraltar on a 44' sailboat this past summer ... my seventh trans-Atlantic crossing. All the other crossings were on US Navy ships. I've survived gale force winds and one hurricane while at sea ... and fortunately have been spared a so called "killer wave". All of the major storms I've experienced at sea were on large ships.
Thank you Lord.

[goodieD]

I don't know about the numbers. But giant waves sinking ships (not without a trace), has been well documented. I find the whole thing fascinating for some reason.

[nunya bidness]

I agree. Waves worry me less than opposing lows banging in to each other and gaining strength.

I was out on the Chesapeake last week and the measly 5 footers were kicking our ass.

Remember that Bay chop? It's still there.

[Dakmar]

I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

[Leisler]

Years ago there was a story in NY Times magazine about a marine insurance investigator who was hired to find out what happened to some very large bulk carriers. Turned out the bottoms were too weak( thin ) and it was later thought they unzipped in ten seconds or so. Not enough time to get a broadcast out. Had nothing to do with weather. Was a function of thin steel and corrosive cargo in the holds mixing with saltwater. The boats were only 2-3 years old and it happened to 2-3 of a class. No survivors.

[nunya bidness]

200 miles off of Hatteras on a 67' aluminum ketch, we hit a container in a nasty white squall and sunk 30 hours later.

The Coasties pulled us off after trying to tow the boat.

[razorback-bert]

I saw this on cable awhile back.