# Rogue Waves to order



## alaric (Feb 27, 2012)

Interesting report in today's gCaptain includes video of these waves being generated in test tank.
https://gcaptain.com/researchers-recreate-rogue-wave-in-lab-shedding-light-on-how-they-form-in-ocean.
Has anyone met up with the real thing at sea and survived to tell the tale?


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## seaman38 (Mar 16, 2016)

1956 on passage Panama to Wellington
1957 Whilst on way to help 'Pamir' too late to be any use. There are other occasions also.

Before the advent of satellites Naval Architects mathematical modelling told them that rogue waves were a figment of seamens imagination and that waves in excess of 60' cold not possibly exist, even disbelieving the Master of the Queen Mary, only after the event of satellites did they discover that as many as 100 rogue waves in excess of 60' could be observed on a single day, the North Pacific followed by the North Atlantic having the most frequent.

How often have we said when on watch 'I wish the barsteward who designed this was here now, he'd soon change his mind' you didn't need 60' waves., 40' could give you the same feeling as your bulker buried her first three hatches under the water (Whaaa)


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## Laurie Ridyard (Apr 16, 2014)

Yup !

December. 1976 North Atlantic on passage from Brazil to Hamburg I was 2/0 on watch on a bridge 100 ft. above the sea and I was looking up at the crest !!!


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## Irvingman (Jan 29, 2006)

1990 - North Atlantic, around February time. I was 2/E and in the engine room when the ship slammed and virtually came to a complete halt, the B&W main engine almost stalled. Bosun came running down into the engineroom shouting that the main mast was down. That caused me some alarm as the engine room skylight was open!! Fortunately he meant the foremast.
Met the Old Man a couple of hours later, he'd been on the bridge at the time, he asked for a cigarette and his hands were still shaking.
The photo doesn't really show the full extent of the damage, but gives an indication.


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## DonaldW (Oct 23, 2009)

*Rogue Waves*



alaric said:


> Interesting report in today's gCaptain includes video of these waves being generated in test tank.
> https://gcaptain.com/researchers-recreate-rogue-wave-in-lab-shedding-light-on-how-they-form-in-ocean.
> Has anyone met up with the real thing at sea and survived to tell the tale?


I was Master of m.v."North Breeze" and we had just sailed from Durban with a load of coal for Hamburg. As there was a strong South-Westerly blowing I decided to head out passed the 100 fathom line and get out of the Agulhas Current before turning South.
A few hours after sailing we were passed by the Ben line ship "Bencruachan" which was coming from Singapore to Cape Town and following the current. 
Just on sunset we saw the we saw her again limping back to Durban after hitting a Freak Wave and doing a lot of damage for'd.


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## Iangb (Aug 28, 2009)

c1967 Great Australian Bight on 'Kooringa'. Wrote off 2 stacks of containers which contained condensed milk and carbon black, and set up the focsle coamings.
It also coated the accommodation with a sticky grey/black/beige mess.
Photos of some of the damaged containers.


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## Bill.B (Oct 19, 2013)

#5 We were northbound on RFA Orangeleaf and picked up the distress. Only time the Oleaf overtook anything. Wild few days.


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

Bound from the Med to Baltimore across the North Atlantic in mid winter. The captain had on turns for 18 knots with a 35' head sea and we were making 6 knots just beating the hell out of the ship for no reason. The ship would bury herself up to the mid ship house and come to a complete stop every 10 minutes as she'd run into one of these seas. I came on watch at 0350 and we took 3 like this in 10 minutes. I called the captain at 0400 and told him I was slowing the ship down. His response was leave this ship on 18 knots. Aye, Aye Captain. He called right back and asked what we were turning which I answered as per his orders. Just at day break a HUGE sea came into sight just on the port bow. I watched in amazement looking up at it from a height of eye of 60 feet to a wave that had to be well over 75 feet high. The period was such that the ship rode up the side of the sea and the entire fore body of the loaded Mariner ship from midships forward came out of the water as she crested the peak of the wave and crashed back down into the water. The spray rose up on each side of the ship about 100' and the we started to flex like a rubber band. I can see that wave approaching the ship in my mind to this day!


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## Hygromia/3rdShip (May 5, 2018)

I was an engineer apprentice, on SS Vermetus (Shell Tanker) not long into my 2nd trip in Feb 1069 heading from Venezuela to Boston with heating fuel when to hit a storm. We battened down everything. Cooks made up lots of cold dishes prior to storm hitting us. We were battened down and no one allowed to go to midships or back.
The ship was hove to on reduced revs for 3 days. Being a steam turbine ship we had to synchronise shutting in the ahead steam valve when we crested a wave as prop was out of water - an overspeed would have tripped the boilers.
Another engineer would have to run from one boiler to the other to take out a burner, then reverse that as soon as the ahead valve was being opened.
The ship was slamming, rolling. We noticed water getting into cargo heating as the deck steam lines were getting smashed.
Of course, we had no vision of the waves being down below on 6 on/off.
By day three, I thought I'd take a look as weather had moderated. Went up the boiler house ladders. When ship rolled and the ladders nearly flat, that's how I got to top of engine room and out onto lifeboat deck by the door in the funnel.
What I saw horrified me looking up at waves much, much higher than the main mast.
The storm stopped really quickly and we had flattish seas and a strong Northerly wind, spraying onto decks, turning to ice - hand rails 6" thick. We isolated all the cargo heating lines that looked damaged and made to the fo'c'sle and found the windlass gear cover smashed onto the gears making it totally unusable.
Yes, an apprentices job to fix it.
The nearest land wind station peaked at 117 kts. When we got to Boston there had been an enormous snow storm and -30F with a gale force wind.
They were 60' waves, at least. Winter N Atlantic hurricane not a nice place to be!
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=ss+vermetus&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=-H3ywSG7s7uZvM%253A%252CIuDh8qXhnJ77bM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kSV1vOSrREXsZjv82h6VOslu4CRqg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwik1dOGuZngAhXGuI8KHUt5C6YQ9QEwAnoECAAQBg#imgdii=rCyRw_QJt0x_qM:&imgrc=-H3ywSG7s7uZvM:


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

I remember one in particular, March 1982 in the N. Atlantic, mv Barber Memnon, bound from St.John to Suez transit. It was about day three out, so half way across the pond. The weather was cold and the sea lively but not too rough.

I would take the external ladders aft of the accomodation to get a bit of fresh air on the way down to the E/R. This one day, I opened the door and looked up at a huge wave astern of us, travelling in the same general direction as us but vectoring about 30 degrees to port of our course. I reckon the wave was over 90 feet judging from my height and having to raise my head. What was amazing was that the wave simply disappeared before my eyes!

In 2010, I was in American Samoa on a claim arising from the tsunami on 29th September 2009 (Yes, I have a tee shirt!). In the evening, having a beer, I got talking to an amenable lady scientist from NOAA who was studying the event and the data gathered. I told her about my rogue wave and she told me that they were undetectable until about 2002 when the stelite radar data improved.

Rgds.
Dave


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## Laurie Ridyard (Apr 16, 2014)

Hygromia/3rdShip Hygromia/3rdShip is offline
Member

Join Date: May 2018
Posts: 3
I was an engineer apprentice, on SS Vermetus (Shell Tanker) not long into my 2nd trip in Feb 1069

You should have reported it to William the Conquerer....


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## John Rogers (May 11, 2004)

A couple of years ago we were cruising of the coast Halifax NS and the weather was getting bad,we had a hard time walking in our state room,more like running wall to wall,I told the wife we need to keep our clothes on and have the life jackets on the bed, after about an hour of just trying to lay there the waves were hitting my patio door,and we are on the top deck,when I checked next morning our patio furniture was gone.


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## Laurie Ridyard (Apr 16, 2014)

makko said:


> I remember one in particular, March 1982 in the N. Atlantic, mv Barber Memnon, bound from St.John to Suez transit. It was about day three out, so half way across the pond. The weather was cold and the sea lively but not too rough.
> 
> I would take the external ladders aft of the accomodation to get a bit of fresh air on the way down to the E/R. This one day, I opened the door and looked up at a huge wave astern of us, travelling in the same general direction as us but vectoring about 30 degrees to port of our course. I reckon the wave was over 90 feet judging from my height and having to raise my head. What was amazing was that the wave simply disappeared before my eyes!
> 
> ...


Another load of bullsheet from a NOOA Bullsheeteer!!!

Of course they were detected by seamen and reported. 

Until 1998, the Pseudo Climate Scientists refused to believe reports of 100 ft. waves. They were then detected by equipment on a N. Sea Oil Rig. You can read all about it if you do a google search.

For my part, in December 1976 I was 2nd mate on a 60,000 tons DWT bulk carrier in the N. Atlantic; when we were hit by a 100+ ft high wave. I was on the bridge 95 ft above the warer line and looking up at the crest !

ATB 

Laurie.


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

Hello Laurie,

I understand that you are not on NOAA's christmas card list!

I have read up on it and remember now the report from the oil rig. What the scientist said to me was that while the waves were reported and vessels damaged/sunk, the scientists knew the waves existed but that there was no "real time method" of detecting the waves or to study their probable formation/size/direction until the advent of better weather radar. It was formerly believed that the traces (of the wave crest) recorded were radar scatter or such, not the actual waves as scientists could not believe that there would be so many waves forming. As mentioned in post #1 , recent research has confirmed that there are a great number of occurences. The problem with studying and researching rogue waves, as witnessed by me, is that the occurence is momentary. 

BTW, I learned a lot on that claim. A tsunami alert can be generated by an alteration of 4 to 6 inches in mid ocean. Pago Pago (Harbour Harbour!) sound is the crater of an extinct caldera volcano and goes from about 900 feet deep to zero at the southern end. Consequently, the "tsunami" at the senate near the old Naval Station was no more than 10 Cm. while at the southern end of the sound, the water rose to a reported height (inspections revealed this to be true) of 15 metres, washing away cars, houses and anything else in it's way!

Rgds.
Dave


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

Laurie Ridyard said:


> Hygromia/3rdShip Hygromia/3rdShip is offline
> Member
> 
> Join Date: May 2018
> ...


Too late, he was already there!


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

seaman38 said:


> 1956 on passage Panama to Wellington
> 1957 Whilst on way to help 'Pamir' too late to be any use. There are other occasions also.
> 
> same here , the Pamir storm was hurricane Carrie and Rangitane was outbound in the Bay of Biscay. Bow railings were bent over by the water force . We were too far away to offer any help
> ...


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## Victor J. Croasdale (Nov 28, 2016)

There's an article on Wikipedia about rogue waves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
I was on the Nordic Commander in 1976, I took some photos of the ship in heavy weather in the Indian Ocean. One of them, taken from a bridge wing, shows the forward mast and the midships samson posts crossing each other because of the hull twisting. It was published in Denholm News. If I can find it I'll scan it and post it.


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

Makko
Dave, that's interesting that you actually saw the wave disappear right in front of you! I've read that these huge waves can well up and travel along for a short distance before dissipating, but to actually see it happen would be amazing.


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

Thank you Wallace. That is true, they apparently just appear and then disappear. Apparently, there is on average around 50 odd bulkers lost in the Pacific/Yellow Sea/Sea of Japan per year. The most probable theory is rogue waves hitting them out of nowhere and turning them turtle.

It was a most sobering experience for me and my interest in talking to the lady scientist to get the low down on what, at the time that I witnessed the phenomena, a "seaman's tale", almost swinging the lamp!

Best Rgds.
Dave


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## Laurie Ridyard (Apr 16, 2014)

makko said:


> Hello Laurie,
> 
> I understand that you are not on NOAA's christmas card list!
> 
> ...


You should try reading NOAA's Sites ! They remind me of the sex maniac monkey !!! ( F***ing nuts !!! ) One bloke Josh Willis writes about the ARGUS system and he is always changing his mind about SSTs.

If you read the UEA.CRU Global Temperatures Graphs site, you will discover there are no Global Temperatures. 

Most of the original temperatures are sea surface temperatures ( SSTs ), recorded by mariners like myself, dedicated UK Met. Office VOs. Every 6 hours, starting at 0000 GMT , we recorded 13 observations in a Ship's Meteorological Log Book in coded form. These were then sent via radio Morse Code to the nearest country for weather forecasting purposes. The Log Books were sent to the Met. Office at the end of each voyage, and these are used by the UEA.CRU. 

You can see the UEA.CRU Pseudo scientists claim that our daytime air temps are unreliable, but the night time air temps are fine. So they decided to use SSTs , which are also unreliable and need correcting. To work out the corrections to the unreliable SSTs, they use the unreliable air temps and ship's course, wind direction and speed. 

The wind direction and strength ( speed ) is estimated by the observer using the Beaufort Scale, and you can see from that that the wind speed has a range of 1 to 7 MPH per force number. They do not take into account relative humidity, which the observer records as depression of the wet bulb on a Stevenson Screen.

To add to this calumny of our records, they make false assumptions as to the method of taking the SSTs, resulting in arguments between the various groups of pseudo scientists as to whether corrections of +0.7 deg C or - 0.6 deg C should be applied ( See Emails ) 

You will see they also admit they do not have temperatures of vast areas of the Earth. When my attention was drawn to Al Gore's nonsense " An Inconvenient Truth " by my youngest son ( Also a Met Office VO ) I worked out that they only covered about 60% of the Earth, going by shipping routes of the World.. 

My third son then drew my attention to a Paper by a contemporary of his at York U., in which it was claimed that vast areas of land were not covered , and these probably had greater rises in temperatures, thus the Graphs were inaccurate. In fact , all the areas he referred to have comparatively huge diurnal and annual variations in temperatures, and equally they could show far less average warming, perhaps even cooling ; but of course, we just do not know !

I reworked my estimate of coverage and came to the conclusion that the actual area was C 40 % !

As a result, my standard advice to all is ...... 
Try using your own intelligence. Upon examination of the UEA.CRU.HADCRUT Global Temperature graphs, anybody with a basic knowledge of History, Geography, Physics and Mathematics will very quickly realise they are, at best , a load of rubbish; at worst, a scam; or as I puts it, Cowpatology. See https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/

As to your remarks about predicting tsunamis - the Japanese claim there is an association between them and the appearance of
oarfish !!! See e.g. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-fish-associated-natural-disasters-found.html

ATB 



Laurie


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## Satanic Mechanic (Feb 23, 2009)

British Beech North Sea winter 1991. I was off watch, it was blowing an absolute hoolie and I was happily looking out of my cabin window contemplating my manly bearing as a real seaman type when this wave quite literally just rose up out of the sea. It didn’t roll in or anything like that I really do mean it just came straight up. Also it wasn’t really a wave as we know it, it was more a vertical wall. An easy 60+feet it flooded the bridge and made me lose my manly bearing momentarily


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## Laurie Ridyard (Apr 16, 2014)

Satanic Mechanic said:


> British Beech North Sea winter 1991. .... made me lose my manly bearing momentarily


Are you meaning you wet yourself ?

Lol !

ATB 

Laurie.


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## Satanic Mechanic (Feb 23, 2009)

Just about and then some, it was more of dive for cover away from the window before it hit. And damn me did it ever hit


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## harry t. (Oct 25, 2008)

January 1954 on passage from Fowey to Philadelphia with a full cargo of china clay. The 3rd mate had draped the union flag around me with a belly lashing sporting a wooden sword, topped off with a hat made from an old chart, before sending me off to the saloon pantry to fetch his supper. Not wanting to appear in front of the catering dept. or the passengers in this rig, I’d removed it before entering the pantry. Now, with the 3rd mate’s tea and sandwich’s set down on the deck, getting dressed up again, I never knew what made me stop and look beyond the open bridge front storm door. Even in the darkness, I could see a proverbial white topped mountain of water was about to crash down. I took off, up the two flights of ladders onto the bridge, where it met me as it thundered down over the bridge wing dodger. Both main deck storm doors and the two ladders I had run up had disappeared along with the gangway stowed on the port side and a few other bits and pieces, otherwise, no harm befell anyone. That was the first of many “freak waves” experienced on the North Atlantic. Seamen the world over have recorded the elements in the six-hourly meteorological reports sent on via Portishead radio. I well remember these shoreside experts in meteorology at Bracknell, Nasa and some universities disputing these shipboard reports, particularly, the ‘height of wave’. “Exaggerations” they claimed, simply, to them there was no such a thing as a “freak wave” or waves as high as regularly recorded. They also claimed it just wasn’t possible to record wave heights with any degree of accuracy from the deck of a ship, as our “height of eye” was continuously moving up and down with the ships motion. They further argued it was impossible these ‘freak waves’ could possibly exist and certainly not in the numbers being reported daily around the world’s oceans by merchant seamen. I had always doubted many of these experts had ever experienced first-hand, the elements in a rage. That all changed around 2002 when Nasa sent up a satellite that was able to record hundreds of the damned things world-wide on any given day, averaging up to 90 feet high.


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## TommyRob (Nov 14, 2010)

Yes, the bridge between the theoretically impossible and the actuality. For years Bumble Bees were regarded as an inexplicable aerodynamic absurdity yet even the simplest country folk knew they could and did fly.


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## OilJiver (Jun 30, 2014)

harry t. said:


> January 1954 on passage from Fowey to Philadelphia with a full cargo of china clay. The 3rd mate had draped the union flag around me with a belly lashing sporting a wooden sword, topped off with a hat made from an old chart, before sending me off to the saloon pantry to fetch his supper. Not wanting to appear in front of the catering dept. or the passengers in this rig, I’d removed it before entering the pantry. Now, with the 3rd mate’s tea and sandwich’s set down on the deck, getting dressed up again, I never knew what made me stop and look beyond the open bridge front storm door. Even in the darkness, I could see a proverbial white topped mountain of water was about to crash down. I took off, up the two flights of ladders onto the bridge, where it met me as it thundered down over the bridge wing dodger. Both main deck storm doors and the two ladders I had run up had disappeared along with the gangway stowed on the port side and a few other bits and pieces, otherwise, no harm befell anyone. That was the first of many “freak waves” experienced on the North Atlantic. Seamen the world over have recorded the elements in the six-hourly meteorological reports sent on via Portishead radio. I well remember these shoreside experts in meteorology at Bracknell, Nasa and some universities disputing these shipboard reports, particularly, the ‘height of wave’. “Exaggerations” they claimed, simply, to them there was no such a thing as a “freak wave” or waves as high as regularly recorded. They also claimed it just wasn’t possible to record wave heights with any degree of accuracy from the deck of a ship, as our “height of eye” was continuously moving up and down with the ships motion. They further argued it was impossible these ‘freak waves’ could possibly exist and certainly not in the numbers being reported daily around the world’s oceans by merchant seamen. I had always doubted many of these experts had ever experienced first-hand, the elements in a rage.  That all changed around 2002 when Nasa sent up a satellite that was able to record hundreds of the damned things world-wide on any given day, averaging up to 90 feet high.



Thanks Harry - great post. Randomness & absurdity of bizarre MN humour unified with WNA horror story. Brilliant.

(Appreciate also your use of “bridge front”. A proper term contested by many).


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## makko (Jul 20, 2006)

harry t. said:


> That all changed around 2002 when Nasa sent up a satellite that was able to record hundreds of the damned things world-wide on any given day, averaging up to 90 feet high.


Thank you Harry for confirming my original post which met with some scathing comments!
Rgds.
Dave


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## seaman38 (Mar 16, 2016)

makko said:


> Thank you Harry for confirming my original post which met with some scathing comments!
> Rgds.
> Dave


Dave you will always find that those who haven't experienced anything personally do not believe those who have. Those that haven't experienced them should count their blessings, rather than disbelieving those who have. The waves are something you will never forget and how easily they tore your steel ship apart, removing rails, bulwarks, ladders etc, and not just at main deck level.


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## harry t. (Oct 25, 2008)

*the elements*

In my last year’s apprenticeship, we were riding it out in a hurricane to the east of Cape Fear in North Carolina on a WW2 ‘Empire’ ship, the old Inishowen Head. She was settled down nicely, until the wooden bridge front dodger boards were blown off, luckily not decapacitating any of the bridge lookouts. These heavy boards didn’t stop until they’d sliced clean through the funnel and demolished the engine uptakes inside, spewing out hot clinkers, setting fires to all of the after-hatch tarpaulins and some of the hatch boards underneath. Those of us still in the amidship accommodation couldn’t exit through the after-accommodation doors, so we had mustered at the large ‘escape’ portholes, forward, at the end of each alleyway. As always, it was ladies first, but when we got the Chief Engineers wife lifted into position it became clear her hips would not allow the rest of her body to pass through to those now assisting out on deck at No.3 hatch. That problem was quickly solved, a drum of cooper’s grease kept in our mess was used to apply lashings of the stuff around her nighty, then a gentle pull by those on deck. When the elements turned nasty you didn’t have to be a believer to appreciate, on the oceans, “man proposes, God disposes”.


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