Freak waves

"The shady phenomenon of freak waves as tall as 10 storey buildings has finally been proved..."

As part of a project called MaxWave - which was set up to test the rumours - two Esa satellites surveyed the oceans.

During a three week period they detected 10 giant waves, all of which were over 25m (81ft) high.

Um, what the heck happens to these waves anyway? I mean' they have to hit land sometime, right?

Ten 100 foot waves!  Now those are tow-ins for sure. 

Just a total guess on my part, but it would be interesting if the future research determined the Bermuda Triangle to be one of those areas with a higher occurrence of the freak waves. It would be the first plausible explanation for the high occurrence of ships lost at sea that I've heard for that area.

Just a total guess on my part, but it would be interesting if the future research determined the Bermuda Triangle to be one of those areas with a higher occurrence of the freak waves. It would be the first plausible explanation for the high occurrence of ships lost at sea that I've heard for that area.

Have you seen the methane theory? That seemed the most plausible to me.

Um, what the heck happens to these waves anyway? I mean' they have to hit land sometime, right?
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No. The largest of open ocean swells can be a combination of wind chop and different swells moving away from each other. Also swell height can decay significantly before it hits land. The further it must travel before hitting land the greater the decay. Seems like some of these large ships need better windows on their bridge's. jim

Makes sense that these do occur due to combinations of factors out on the open ocean.  I do not have a goal of cruising the oceans any farther than a few miles out on my kayak.   

oh man, one of m favorite topics...takes me back to school...here's a great little tidbit on 'em...

http://www.math.uio.no/~karstent/waves/index_en.html


scroll down to non-linear focusing-- this seems to be the most plausible cause, and explanation for why they don't hit the coasts (there are at least two different functions that apply)....

next we'll be talking about long run-out landslides...i ADMIT it I'm A GEEK to the core

Just a total guess on my part, but it would be interesting if the future research determined the Bermuda Triangle to be one of those areas with a higher occurrence of the freak waves. It would be the first plausible explanation for the high occurrence of ships lost at sea that I've heard for that area.

Have you seen the methane theory? That seemed the most plausible to me.

I just Googled it, and you're right, that is a pretty plausible theory. It would be pretty cool to see.... from a distance. 

 Not quite 81' waves, but plenty big ones pop up out of no where along our coast.   I've seen them on a slow day surfing 26th ave.  3' waves, then all of a sudden, we see walls of water breaking off shore in the kelp.  We were swept in and dumped on the beach.

  The following pictures were taken by a boat on the outside.  As reported,in 65' of water, off Davenport, calm conditions, nothing to worry about.  Then, several roller came through.(breaking in 65' of water!)



Note the antennas.  They're 13' above the water.  This family just escaped disaster...

Geeze!! those are big waves!  Esp the 2d shot.  Wonder what the frontside of that wave looked like.

When were these shot, and by whom, if you don't mind me asking?  Always interested in what goes on in y backyard.

Thanks

Allen

oh man, one of m favorite topics...takes me back to school...here's a great little tidbit on 'em...
http://www.math.uio.no/~karstent/waves/index_en.html

interesting research.  The denial period is past us--we now know they occur and with far greater frequency than originally predicted. And while we know physically how they happen (additive energy and amplitude of various separate wave trains coinciding a a point in time). The real crux of the research is how to develop a model to predict them that is simple enough to be used widely and often yet complex enough to be precise and accurate to the level of aiding mariners. I personally think it is a Herculean task--there is too much complexity and variation in the inputs. Heck, we still don't get the weather right often enough even though it is more easily observed and modeled. And we still cannot figure out hwo to predict the path of hurricanes more than a few days out.

These pictures were taken during the 80s.  Don't remember where I got them from.  They've been sitting on my boating accident page for some time.

http://www.baylinerownersclub.org/gallery/album648