"She's a fine ship, Captain, and after a few wee sips of Saurian brandy she starts to look bonny, too."
Posted on 07/24/2004 9:26:58 PM PDT by playball0
It appears that massive ship-sinking ocean waves - as high as 10-storey buildings - are far more common than scientists previously thought.
Oceanographers' conventional wisdom was that waves over 25 metres only occurred once every 10,000 years.
However, the European Space Agency says satellite data it collected over only three weeks in 2001 found more than 10 individual waves around the globe that swelled to more than 25 metres in height.
The news is significant because current ships and off-shore platforms are only built to withstand maximum wave heights of 15 metres.
Over the past two decades more than 200 supertankers and container ships exceeding 200 metres in length have sunk around the world, with rogue waves believed to be a possible cause.
Senior scientist with the GKSS Forschungszentrum GmbH research centre, Wolfgang Rosenthal, says many ships have been lucky to survive giant waves.
"The same phenomenon could have sunk many less lucky vessels: two large ships sink every week on average, but the cause is never studied to the same detail as an air crash," he said.
"It simply gets put down to 'bad weather'."
Researchers are now examining the satellite data to see if the giant waves can be forecast.
Unless the wave is breaking, most ships should have little problem riding such a wave - if they are properly oriented.
Thanks! I grew up sailboating. The article however, left me with the impression that a TON of ships and boats were done in each year by these rogue waves. So, are you suggesting it was an orientation problem, or that these were docked vessels?
thanks.
Fending off a Russian Cruiser trying to get near our Carrier, The Coral Sea, in the Med (87-88), the Sea was pretty rough and the Ruskie was perpendicular to the waves.
I broke the orders and went topside up to the signal shack to get a good view.
The Russian Cruiser was going over to one side so far that al you could see was superstructure, like you were photographing from above, and then over the other way and I could see 2 of it's 3 screws and a whole lot of hull.
I'd have hating to been on board that ship.
The signal shack got smacked so hard by a wave that it was torn loose from the deck and had to be tied back down to keep it from going over the side and a window on the bridge got blown out.
It was real nice in Sonar Control too, what with it being almost all the way forward and 3 decks down. Up and down, pass the sardines and mustard sauce.
English speaking sailors term ships as 'she'. The Germans and Russians use 'he'. Non-sailors or other disinterested folks use 'it'.
The Fitz sank in Lake Superior. Do 'Rogue Waves' occur in the Great Lakes as well as the ocean? That would be... not good.
Halsey was almost courtmartialed for that.
I was in stationed by the Coast Guard in Sault Ste. Marie the year after the Fitzgerald went down.
Let me just say that the song is quite accurate about what happened. The area where the mouth of Whitefish bay is an area where all the wave energy sweeping from the western portion of Lake superior is suddenly bottled up and HUGE waves develop.
It's covered by mostly by compression wave theory and harmonic buildup if you ever want to get into the math.
From a personal point of view. It's awesome to see from shore and terrifying to be out in it.
Must have something to with all the required maintenance.
Mariners have known about the frequency of rogue waves or ultimate waves for centuries. It was only the scientists on dry land that doubted them.
SO9
The shape of a wave is much more important than the height. Short period waves are worse, no matter how high. "Square" ten foot waves with vertical faces will brutalize any yacht. I've been in 50 foot seas that were so far apart they were like gentl rolling hills. If you were ever trapped in fifty foot vertical breaking "sqaure waves," you would be royally screwed.
I don't think so. I don't think lakes — even the Great Lakes — are big enough. As I understand it, the phenomenon is caused by the fact that there are literally hundreds of wave trains propagating in the ocean continuously. They are all going in different directions at different magnitudes. But every so often, totally at random, all the wave trains (or at least a whole bunch of them) will happen to get in phase at a particular place for a brief period of time. You don't want to be there when that happens. The high waves are one thing, but it's probably worse if you happen to be there when an in-phase trough occurs. When that breaks, you'll get it from all sides.
There is probably some naturally-occurring chunk of shoreline somewhere in the world that just so happens to be arranged such that the wave trains being reflected back from the shoreline converge on some particular place many miles out to sea. If that were true, then that particular place would be a high-probability locus for bad news.
Global warming to blame ... /sarcasm
Seriously, anybody who has ever seriously discussed this topic with an experienced ocean sailor is likely to have the reaction I do to this article: "what the heck? don't you folks believe the sailor's reports?"
Nearly every one of them who have traveled with a group of ships I've talked to has war stories about waves nearly a hundred feet high...
Agreed with you completely, Servant of the 9...
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