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Tsunami Impacts on High Seas Cruising Boats
Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising
boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art |
At sea, where the depth is sufficient to prevent the Tsunami from breaking,
all boats would feel would be a rise in altitude (I wonder what their GPS's said?). -- Dennis Gibbons dkgibbons at optonline dot net "Art Mosher" wrote in message ... Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art |
These waves are only a few inches high in the open ocean but they are
traveling hundreds of miles an hour and are miles between the crests. They have only rarely been observed in the open sea and then only in calms where they are not masked by other wave action. This is one reason why there is little warning. When the waves reach shallow water, the enormous energy of their high speed, and the tremendous volume represented by even a few inches over the very long wavelength, translates into very high waves as the wavelength is shortened by the shallow water. -- Roger Long "Art Mosher" wrote in message ... Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art |
On Tuesday 28 December 2004 9:56 am in rec.boats.cruising Art Mosher wrote:
Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? They would probably never notice it, just a long swell added to the existing shorter waves. The tsunami only gets high when it hits shallow water. -- My real address is crn (at) netunix (dot) com WARNING all messages containing attachments or html will be silently deleted. Send only plain text. |
Art Mosher wrote:
Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art Tsunamis at sea are almost unnoticeable, unless they reflect from shore and meet themselves somewhere like a standing wave on an antenna. They are a long, large, deep waves which only become catastrophic as they hit shallow water, which makes them pile up as they try to bounce back out to sea. Lissajous studied wave interference and his theories predict constructive and destructive interference of waves, which work similarily for water or radio waves. Terry K |
We are a cruising boat and was anchored in one of the bays on the southwest side of Phuket (Thailand) when the tsunami struck. We were anchored in 14 metres of water some half a Nm from the beach. The boat swung around at anchor as the water level initially fell. As the water returned the water rose about 2-3 metres just like a massive tide rise. At this stage the wave had not broken. As the water was within 100 metres from the beach where the depth was about 3-4 metres the wave broke sending huge volumes of water onto the beach and surrounding foreshore area. About 100 cruising boats were anchored in the bay (all survived). Cars and buildings were hurled into the air as the force was dissipated along the foreshore. A friends dinghy on the shore ended up on the top of a concrete structure about 6 metres above the water line. A power transformer neerby was torn from the concrete pole and landed near the dinghy. The tops of concrete structures were literally blown off the buildings. Other cruising boats at sea felt no effect of the tsunami. I guess the luck we had was the deep water bay and distance we anchored off the beach. Tony S/V Ambrosia |
Which beach were you near? I just got an e-mail from Phil Roberts on Wind
Dreams at Phi Phi Don. He experienced about the same thing. He was in 45' of water and bumped the bottom as the water went out. Said it was more like a bathtub draining and refilling really fast. The wave didn't crest until about 200 yards from the beach. A lot of smaller boats closer in were picked up by the crest and thrown ashore. (At leat the S140 I sold him held through two 360 spins.) Ton Sai Bay is a total wreck. Judy went ashore to help out in a makeshift first aid station at the Cabana hotel and Phil has moved his boat around to Loh Moo Dee on the East side in clear water and is running his watermaker full blast to help supply the hotel. -- Glenn Ashmore I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com wrote in message oups.com... We are a cruising boat and was anchored in one of the bays on the southwest side of Phuket (Thailand) when the tsunami struck. We were anchored in 14 metres of water some half a Nm from the beach. The boat swung around at anchor as the water level initially fell. As the water returned the water rose about 2-3 metres just like a massive tide rise. At this stage the wave had not broken. As the water was within 100 metres from the beach where the depth was about 3-4 metres the wave broke sending huge volumes of water onto the beach and surrounding foreshore area. About 100 cruising boats were anchored in the bay (all survived). Cars and buildings were hurled into the air as the force was dissipated along the foreshore. A friends dinghy on the shore ended up on the top of a concrete structure about 6 metres above the water line. A power transformer neerby was torn from the concrete pole and landed near the dinghy. The tops of concrete structures were literally blown off the buildings. Other cruising boats at sea felt no effect of the tsunami. I guess the luck we had was the deep water bay and distance we anchored off the beach. Tony S/V Ambrosia |
wrote in message oups.com... We are a cruising boat and was anchored in one of the bays on the southwest side of Phuket (Thailand) when the tsunami struck. We were anchored in 14 metres of water some half a Nm from the beach. The boat swung around at anchor as the water level initially fell. As the water returned the water rose about 2-3 metres just like a massive tide rise. At this stage the wave had not broken. As the water was within 100 metres from the beach where the depth was about 3-4 metres the wave broke sending huge volumes of water onto the beach and surrounding foreshore area. About 100 cruising boats were anchored in the bay (all survived). Cars and buildings were hurled into the air as the force was dissipated along the foreshore. A friends dinghy on the shore ended up on the top of a concrete structure about 6 metres above the water line. A power transformer neerby was torn from the concrete pole and landed near the dinghy. The tops of concrete structures were literally blown off the buildings. Other cruising boats at sea felt no effect of the tsunami. I guess the luck we had was the deep water bay and distance we anchored off the beach. Tony S/V Ambrosia Thanks for the informative, first hand report of the situation from a cruiser in the tsunami effected area. Although we are all saddened by the tremendious loss of life in these areas, it is heartening and reassuring the hear what impact this tsunami had on a cruising boat at anchor or at sea. I plan to print out this report/information and past it into one of my chart table reference books. I just hope I never have future need of it.. Steve s/v Good Intentions |
wow...good luck to all sailors / crusers in the effected areas...so far
us media is reporting 10 countries effected..(all the way to africa)... 50,000+ dead, 1/3 of them children......the images we are getting are un-real.........nature can be so powerful....... |
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 07:26:34 -0800, "Steve" wrote:
I plan to print out this report/information and past it into one of my chart table reference books. I just hope I never have future need of it.. You may. Consider this a Notice to Mariners to correct their paper charts: Sumatra isn't where it used to be. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/041228/1/3pim1.html R. |
yep...i think i heard some of the land masses
shifted 100 feet (in some areas)... |
Art Mosher wrote:
Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art Art, We who live in boats, live on the boundary zone between water and air where water shows it's most interesting effects. Intuitively you are correct, we stand the chance of feeling the effect but it is mitigated by water's ability to translate the wave from horizontal to vertical which at the same time reduces it's power many fold and thus we can miss the event with all the "background noise" already going on. Perhaps a submarine at depth might have it's dishes rattled a little, but not so us on the surface. It would be interesting to have someones observation from an absolutely flat (no wind - dead) sea knowing it was about to happen. We are most accustom to surface wind generated waves, an active subject on this site at the moment... In these, water has both vertical and horizontal components of motion and (most) all the energy of the wave is contained in a shallow depth of water about equal to the scope or peak-to-peak distance. If you look into surfing, the great spots are places where long fetch waves are "funneled" and turned from tame smooth rounded top seas into sharp faced monsters by gradients that turn horizontal motion into up motion. Tsunami waves are more characteristic of sound waves and travel by compressibility of water (thus it's high speed) rather than surface waves where water acts like a non-compressible liquid affected by gravity. The tsunami energy is found all the way from near-surface to bottom and the motion is only horizontal. The similar thing happens in shallowing water as in the surfers best waves. Only in this case you can make a case for the ocean "erupting" out of the bay as a visual observation from the energy and movement being funneled by the bottom and sides. Remember pictures of "your hard-of-hearing great great grandpa" using that weird looking funnel stuck in his ear to hear you better? As the volume of water "thrust" up on shore runs back to the sea, boats can kiss the bottom as fast flowing water recedes. We in boats can go further down than we ever went up. Yet at anchor at depth is the place to be as long as crud doesn't mess up our rode. It's great news that it is a very rare event in daily living. Tsunamis even happen here on the great lakes to much smaller extent. It seems interesting when earthquakes energies are likened to atom bombs. I suppose we do that to give perspective to our human ability to release energy vs. natures ability, and to make some yardstick of destruction as you compare war pictures of Japan. I would put good money on this not being the first nor most destructive wave in geologic time, but like Pompai we humans site our places to live by other factors. My sadness for these people is deep, I pray they can put their lives right soon, and the compassion demonstrated by the cruisers in the neighborhood needs to be rewarded in some way. Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. A fair amount of information is available on tsunamis, yet you and I will probably spend greater effort toward understanding more likely to happen things. I'm happy to see this will get into the cruising publications so we can have a leg up at understanding how to avoid their effects. Skip |
Art Mosher wrote:
Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art From the Marine-L mailing list: "News via ham radio transcription (I have "depersonalized" - ppp is a person, yyy is a yacht) concerning the yachting community only: We were quite shaken up at the prospect of what might have been, and anxious about our friends in Chagos and Malaysia/Thailand. yyy and all boats in Kilifi, Kenya are fine. We had unusual surges of about a metre in and out of the creek, with strong currents and discoloured upwellings. The boats waltzed in all directions around their moorings. Nothing more dramatic than that. However down by the bridge the big green coaster broke its moorings and washed ashore near the old ferry landing. Fortunately she did not run amok amongst the yacht moorings. She was refloated yesterday. Our friend ppp aboard the yacht yyy in Chagos, reported all ok there - just a lot of sand and water moving around. No news about boats in the Maldives, though I don't expect there would be many at this time of the year. Amazingly, and to our great relief, hundreds of yachts anchored along the west coast of Phuket were also all ok. They said they just went up and down and then watched aghast as the giant wave built up on the beach a few hundred yards away, wrecking beachfront hotels and restaurants. It seems there was one yacht casualty in Ao Chalong, which we would have thought to be better protected. The pontoons in the Boat Lagoon Marina were under water for a while. In Langkawi, Malaysia, it appears that the marina at Rebak and the new one at Telaga were damaged, with pontoons washed away. Don't know of yacht casualties there, but providentially at least 2 of our friends , yyy and yyy had just left and were safe outside. Contrary to our fears, it seems that aboard a boat was one of the safest places to be, and compared with the carnage ashore the yachting community got off very lightly - thank goodness! end transcript Fair winds Paul |
Glen,
We were on a friends boat anchored at Nai Harn. Our boat is on the hard at Boat Lagoon undergoing some paintwork and new teak deck. Our total up and down movement would not have exceeded 3 metres. Will gladly supply any further info if required. Tony S/V Ambrosia |
In french TV they hacve said that the cost have moved from about 25m and
the axis of teh globe have changed. that have effect on charts and on our GPS also Take care Thierry www.goldschmidt.org French web nautical guide Jetcap a écrit : Art Mosher wrote: Curiosity? Should not the Tsunami wave affect a high seas cruising boat? I have seen no mention of it anywhere; but would have thought there would be some damage to boats at sea. ?? - Art From the Marine-L mailing list: "News via ham radio transcription (I have "depersonalized" - ppp is a person, yyy is a yacht) concerning the yachting community only: We were quite shaken up at the prospect of what might have been, and anxious about our friends in Chagos and Malaysia/Thailand. yyy and all boats in Kilifi, Kenya are fine. We had unusual surges of about a metre in and out of the creek, with strong currents and discoloured upwellings. The boats waltzed in all directions around their moorings. Nothing more dramatic than that. However down by the bridge the big green coaster broke its moorings and washed ashore near the old ferry landing. Fortunately she did not run amok amongst the yacht moorings. She was refloated yesterday. Our friend ppp aboard the yacht yyy in Chagos, reported all ok there - just a lot of sand and water moving around. No news about boats in the Maldives, though I don't expect there would be many at this time of the year. Amazingly, and to our great relief, hundreds of yachts anchored along the west coast of Phuket were also all ok. They said they just went up and down and then watched aghast as the giant wave built up on the beach a few hundred yards away, wrecking beachfront hotels and restaurants. It seems there was one yacht casualty in Ao Chalong, which we would have thought to be better protected. The pontoons in the Boat Lagoon Marina were under water for a while. In Langkawi, Malaysia, it appears that the marina at Rebak and the new one at Telaga were damaged, with pontoons washed away. Don't know of yacht casualties there, but providentially at least 2 of our friends , yyy and yyy had just left and were safe outside. Contrary to our fears, it seems that aboard a boat was one of the safest places to be, and compared with the carnage ashore the yachting community got off very lightly - thank goodness! end transcript Fair winds Paul |
On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 06:21:29 GMT, WaIIy
wrote: On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:06:32 GMT, Skip VerDuin wrote: Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. What would you have them do? The infrastructure to warn the people it affected is not in place. Right. All that is needed to become part of the Pacific Rim Tsunami warning system is to ask and TO SUPPLY A CONTACT PERSON who is able to receive the warning and disseminate it. It's free, but you have to ask, and you have to show you can make use of the information. Pacific Rim knew about the quake, and suspected the results, but had no one in the area to pass the information to. (According to Wall St. Jour.) |
WaIIy wrote:
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:06:32 GMT, Skip VerDuin wrote: Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. What would you have them do? The infrastructure to warn the people it affected is not in place. Legitimate question, one that needs answering with time without sweeping the effort under the rug. And a multi-faceted issue that touches a lot of people with individual answers. The US has gone so far as to place sensors on the ocean floor with satellite communication for early warning in places. One answer is that big bucks are being spent for high risk areas with wealth. In other parts of the world today there are phones, radios, etc; lesser forms of communications and readiness. My statement goes more to attitude. It is one thing to "shout" a warning but not be heard, a commendable and frustrating position. It is another thing to sit on your butt and attempt nothing when the information is at hand. As an outsider truly I don't know the reality, I can only guess the reporter is accurate in his/her insinuation that our people in the know sat frozen, or worse indifferent. It has happened that way in the past, protected by bureaucracy. I don't expect to ever know the whole answer. That's OK. I do hope that we (humanity) will use the experience to hone our ability to reduce the impact in the future. Especially those of us who can do something about it, not so much we who sit on the sideline. As for myself, I expect to choose a little deeper anchorage from time to time. Skip |
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"~^ beancounter ~^" wrote in
ups.com: wow...good luck to all sailors / crusers in the effected areas...so far us media is reporting 10 countries effected..(all the way to africa)... 50,000+ dead, 1/3 of them children......the images we are getting are un-real.........nature can be so powerful....... An exellent animation is available from NOAA: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/video/t...onesia2004.mov |
WaIIy wrote in
: On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:06:32 GMT, Skip VerDuin wrote: Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. What would you have them do? The infrastructure to warn the people it affected is not in place. Here is a good article on the lack of infrastructure for the warning: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...ing_usat_x.htm |
Fuzzy Logic wrote:
WaIIy wrote in : On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:06:32 GMT, Skip VerDuin wrote: Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. What would you have them do? The infrastructure to warn the people it affected is not in place. Here is a good article on the lack of infrastructure for the warning: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...ing_usat_x.htm Excellent reference Fuzzy, it turns "nothing we could do" into "did what we could". Even though a part of the world was looking at a "loaded gun". Next I'll look at your other post which may be more on topic than this thread is going. Wally, if you are an insider and part of the system (at NOAA?), I leave it to you to self measure your pre-event actions which is the only ethics issue I care to have on the table. I'm in no rush to "hang the guilty" which might be uniquely American perspective on problem solving. Your umbrage to my statements in the other thread might or might not stand. Let's admit organizations have the unique opportunity to channel people resources to do more than individuals might do separately in the same time. Let's admit the bar (of acceptable outcome) is not set equally everywhere. Let's admit people are at the core of the suffering here, and not necessarily in control of events around them, yet only individual effort can improve outcome. Lastly let's admit that attitude affects choices in personal actions. So every person in every organization (not just US you know) who is OK with their own choices about being proactive in averting the consequences of the "loaded gun" described by A****er of USGS (and their actions when it went off) deserves to sleep the sleep of a contented baby. It seems clear in the aftermath today that "it won't happen here", "all this is in the hands of God, not mine", "nothing I can do", and other attitudes you might think of, are not acceptable approaches to improving the human condition. I'm delighted to see efforts to now develop an Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System, yet sad it took such loss to get moving. Having said all that, what will I do? Perhaps no more than to be sensitive to where risk is present, and where pertinent information is available. Maybe germinate awareness in others as I travel... I too am an American and I need to maybe have broader shoulders without being the Ugly American. I doubt I will make great difference, it's all I've got in this moment... I just won't think highly of anyone who chooses inaction in the face of opportunity. Now you get to choose whether you give a damn... Skip |
Skip wrote in news:60KAd.4080$e77.3733
@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com: Fuzzy Logic wrote: WaIIy wrote in m: On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:06:32 GMT, Skip VerDuin wrote: Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. What would you have them do? The infrastructure to warn the people it affected is not in place. Here is a good article on the lack of infrastructure for the warning: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...ing_usat_x.htm Excellent reference Fuzzy, it turns "nothing we could do" into "did what we could". Even though a part of the world was looking at a "loaded gun". Next I'll look at your other post which may be more on topic than this thread is going. Here is NOAA's statement on how events transpired: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2358.htm |
Peter W. Meek wrote:
On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 06:21:29 GMT, WaIIy wrote: On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 22:06:32 GMT, Skip VerDuin wrote: Today I hear the US (maybe USGS or NOAA) says "there was nothing we could do even though we knew for hours it was going to happen" so maybe these agencies need a swift kick to change an attitude. What would you have them do? The infrastructure to warn the people it affected is not in place. Right. All that is needed to become part of the Pacific Rim Tsunami warning system is to ask and TO SUPPLY A CONTACT PERSON who is able to receive the warning and disseminate it. It's free, but you have to ask, and you have to show you can make use of the information. Pacific Rim knew about the quake, and suspected the results, but had no one in the area to pass the information to. (According to Wall St. Jour.) One major resource not being tapped is the millions of cell phones in use in these areas. Most of the world doesn't even use land lines anymore -- everyone has a cell phone, and it's with them most of the time. All that would be necessary to issue a warning is to call every cell phone within a certain area. Pinpoint accuracy wouldn't be necessary -- just call the phones logged on to certain areas of the network. Most phones will be GPS equipped soon anyway, so warnings could be issued within a single city block, etc. Many entrepreneurs have tried to start up such warning systems, but they've been mostly ignored by government officials. I guess they don't have enough money to get them to listen. Matt O. |
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