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

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