Bob wrote:
Hi Gary:

I must disagree respectfully. To label a wave as a "freak or rogue" to
justify the deaths of your passengers suggests that a mariner is
helpless, can do nothing to avoid such conditions.

I wasn't speaking of deaths or passengers just the existence of what the
rest of the world calls rogue or freak waves.

The wave is such a
random act the operator is helpless. It is too easy to say, "the reason
why all my passengers died was because an unexplained wave came out of
nowhere" is simply irresponsible.

Gary says, "...It is because they are out of character with the other
waves around at a given time. They do exist and are well
documented...." So we agree that unusual waves do exist. So they are a
part of marine environment. If that is the case they are not freaks, or
rogues, they are simply an expected, and therefore predictable, wave
that may lie outside that second standard deviation.

You are wrong:
Freak wave
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Freak waves, also known as rogue waves or monster waves, are relatively
large and spontaneous ocean surface waves which can sink even
medium-large ships. In oceanography, they are more concisely defined as
waves that are more than double the significant wave height (SWH), which
is itself defined as the mean of the largest third of waves in a wave
record.

Once thought to be only legendary, they are now known to be a natural
(although relatively rare) ocean phenomenon. Their existence was known
anecdotally from mariners' testimonies and damages inflicted on ships;
however, their scientific measurement was only positively confirmed
following measurements of a freak wave at the Draupner oil platform in
the North Sea on January 1, 1995. During this measure, minor damage was
inflicted on the platform, confirming that the reading was valid.

In the course of the Project MaxWave, researchers from the GKSS Research
Centre, using data collected by ESA satellites, identified a large
number of radar signatures that may be evidence for freak waves. Further
research is underway to verify the method that translates the radar
echoes into sea surface elevation.

Freak waves are a likely source of the sudden inexplicable disappearance
of many ocean-going vessels.

An analogy may be the following: When a drunk gets into a car and kills
a bunch of people is it a preventable crash or an accident that just
happened? You know the line, " and then the car went out of control.
There was nothing I could do!" Well there was something I could
do............ Duhhh, do not drive while impaired.
Stupid analogy. A better one would be a sober man getting in a car and
as he is driving along a tree falls on the car. Freak accident!

Sure different sized waves are seen from satellites. That is my point.
They are out there. There are many reasons why they are there. But I
believe it is very dangerous and irresponsible to blame the wave. Why
should we make inadequate knowledge or poor judgment a justifiable
reason for killing people who are on our boat?
Unles it is true. Then what? A freak wave is very likely along the
west coast of North America especially along river bars etc. That is
why they close them!

How about this one, "people kill people waves don't." Agree of
Disagree?

I guess it is clear....I disagree!

Gary

purple_stars wrote:

i'm not trying to be difficult ... but, these sources being sighted, i
read more about these waves after seeing the references posted here and
they're saying these things are many times the height of the waves
around them and strike suddenly without any warning. they can occur in
relative calm, and they aren't that rare according to the radar study.
like you can be in a 5 meter sea and suddenly you're looking at a 30
meter wave. what could be considered adequate knowledge and good
judgement when faced with a 30 meter wave in a 5 meter sea ? it seems
like the only sure way to avoid the death of everyone on board is just
to stay at home and never be on the ocean in the first place. what
design considerations could you make in a 30 or 40 foot sailboat to
deal with a 30 meter wave ? it's just beyond anything we're prepared
for, and i am really interested in what you could possibly do to
prepare for it. 30 meters, that's like 90 feet high ... that's
GINORMOUS, i mean if you see a 30 meter wave on a 30 foot sailboat, you
might as well take a sip of champagne and wave to it cheerfully from
deck, cause your history.

I think they exist and are more common in some areas than others. The
areas are well known by sailors and fisherman and have a history. The
great Capes for instance, Queen Charlotte Sound, the Alaska panhandle.
Most of these areas are places people don't cruise and certainly not
when the weather is miserable.

Right now, up here in the Pacific NW we have a 970 millibar storm with
40-50 knot winds going through every 24 hours. No one is sailing
(except the Clipper Venture yachts on there way from Tokyo!).

The other thing of note is that most very large waves are not curling
breakers like you see off Mavericks but big hills with the tops blown
off. A well found boat that is battened down for the weather will
survive. You may die of fright but the boat will, in all likelihood
still be floating the next day. Like a bottle with a cork in it! Just
keep off those lee shores.

I have spent 15 years at sea (or so) in all types of boats and I haven't
seen the freak yet. Touch wood.

Gaz

Roger Long wrote:
"Bob" wrote


There is no such thing as a rogue or sneaker wave.


Sure there is. They're the big ones that come along infrequently but
more often than people realize. You are making much to much out of
semantics here. They are not supernatural but rare enough to deserve
a special name.

Succinct and right. Nice Roger.

Gaz

"Gary" wrote
I have spent 15 years at sea (or so) in all types of boats and I
haven't seen the freak yet.

When you do, you'll never forget it. You look out towards the horizon
and all the waves are going up and down. Way off, one isn't going up
and down. It's just up there. The trough ahead of it is scarier than
the wave when it finally opens up next to you.

The damage done to smaller craft by these waves is almost always the
result of the boat falling off the steep crest and through the air.
Hull and superstructure damage is usually on the side away from the
wave.

--

Roger Long

Hi otnmbrd:

Semantic diffrences I agree. However, there is a reason to split this
rethorical hair. I belive accepting the term "freak wave" includes
being powerless in the defintion. I say they do not exist. Why, because
they are not freaks nor rogues and we are not powerless to avoid or
manage them. "...Pitch black night, moderate seas... Pea soup fog,
moderate seas..." and then WHAM! Sounds as though you know from first
hand experince these waves happen..... often. So I guess they are not
all that rare. I might even be so bold as to say.... expected and
predictable.

Soon or later, depending on when and where, and many times when we
least expect one, its gonna happen. Maybe just a philosoph of the sea.
So why consider them so exctionally freakish? They are a part of the
playground.


Oh, here is a good troll............................................
What type of boat is safest, most seaworthy, and best capable to
survive a FREAK WAVE?
Still Bobing

"Bob" wrote in news:1138759290.301009.92650
@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com:

Hi otnmbrd:

Semantic diffrences I agree. However, there is a reason to split this
rethorical hair. I belive accepting the term "freak wave" includes
being powerless in the defintion. I say they do not exist. Why,
because
they are not freaks nor rogues and we are not powerless to avoid or
manage them. "...Pitch black night, moderate seas... Pea soup fog,
moderate seas..." and then WHAM! Sounds as though you know from first
hand experince these waves happen..... often. So I guess they are not
all that rare. I might even be so bold as to say.... expected and
predictable.

Good weather or bad, daylight or night, they can hit you. They don't
even have to be big, just out of sequence. The point is you may very
well be powerless to react correctly or in time for numerous reasons
that may involve your boat or yourself....at any rate, frequently
unexpected and not predictable no matter what your experienbce or how
well you are watching.



Soon or later, depending on when and where, and many times when we
least expect one, its gonna happen. Maybe just a philosoph of the
sea.
So why consider them so exctionally freakish? They are a part of the
playground.

They are, but we need a term and "freak" and/or "rogue" tend to fit.




Oh, here is a good troll............................................
What type of boat is safest, most seaworthy, and best capable to
survive a FREAK WAVE?
Still Bobing



BG A 500,000 tn, fully loaded tanker in deep sea conditions
EG.....maybe.

otn

Howabout an SSBN sitting on the bottom?
Bob

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
I've run across this picture a couple places on the net and am wondering
if it is real or a digital paste up.

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2004/...b__430x275.jpg

If real, it is very spooky because of the relatively benign conditions
around it. You would expect something like this in a well developed major
storm but not in the general sea state shown.

It doesn't look like a breaking shoal. If these things do exist, they
must be exceedingly rare and this must be one of the luckiest pictures
ever taken.

I'm guessing this is a digital fake.

--

Roger Long



Roger
I've been surfing all my life and I'm 54 now.
The wave is real - what puts it "out" is the cropping of the shot. It is a
fairly standard wave breaking on a flat reef complex probably very close to
a shore or headland. You just don't get a look at the surrounding features.
It's probably not all that big either, it's just the perspective it's taken
from.

Sure is ugly, though. I would bet there's very little space between where
it's breaking and where it will end up - if'n you had your boat in between
the two, I'd guess the rocks would be more of a problem than the wave
itself.

The following posters' Mavericks shots are scarier because they're a long
way off shore and they're mighty big. The only good thing about them is
that you'd get pounded all the way out of the zone and into flat water if
you stayed together long enough.

regards
Hoges in WA (as in Western Australia)

Here are some freak waves to check out:

http://dode777.jeeran.com/announcement_page1.html
http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/perfect...ogue_wave2.jpg
http://happycarpenter.blogs.com/the_...wave-thumb.jpg
http://www.wingo.com/newick/roguewave.html Yea Baby!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon...nchen800hi.jpg Not real, but gets you thinking!
http://www.weather-forecast.com/gall...&cat=0&pos=-24 The wave debated about.
http://www.strangecosmos.com/images/content/102022.jpg
http://www.strangedangers.com/images/content/108140.jpg
http://www.cherryflava.com/photos/un...ed/shark01.jpg Not a rogue wave, but I don't want to see this either!
http://www.oceannavigator.com/articles/1153/
http://www.mcaorals.co.uk/ship%20disasters.htm

SeeYaa Harbin