"Brian Nystrom" wrote in message
...


riverman wrote:

No, you're right. NOAA uses the same standard as river runners: trough
to
peak. But surfers (specifically Hawaiin surfers) have their own formula,
and
since a lot of the surfer terminology follows the fad, surfers worldwide
tend to follow the Hawaiian model. Which leads to a lot of non-surfers
also
following the model, which leads to the confusion. Check out
http://surfing.about.com/library/weekly/aa042001.htm

Ah, that explains it, but that sure is a screwy way of measuring waves. As
for
East Coasters doubling the wave height...it's BS.



I can't generalize for ALL east coasters, but it was on the right coast
where I first encountered this. Some fishermen were on a raft trip, and
estimated what I called a 6 foot wave as being a '3 foot wave'. I figured
they just had poor spatial sense, but they explained that other fishermen
also rated the sea swells from midline to peak. I've watched this happen all
over, but never knew where it originated.

--riverman