Rogue waves

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Riverbed

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Anyone ever been hit by a rogue wave? Seen one? Ride over one? How frequently do they appear and geographically, where do they mainly occur? Anyone know? Reason I ask is last fall, one hit a 40 fishing boat locally, killing two and last night two experienced kayakers got hit by one less than a mile from here. One drowned and the other just barely made it to a nearby island. Should I be more paranoid than I already am or are these waves an infrequent freak of nature?
 
Saw something on TV about them a few weeks ago. They can be extremely dangerous, sometimes 30-40 feet or more.
 
saw one on Deadliest Catch last year, knocked the boat on its side
 
I don't know the particulars of where they were exactly - could have been river mouth, bay or near-shore open ocean but in any case, the water temp would have been in the 50 degree range, not giving you too much in-water time before hypothermia sets in. Earlier reports cited a "rogue wave," but later reports said "swell." That brought me to the question of rogue waves and who may have experienced one. Seems like a geo-mapping satellite system might be able to spot some.
 
well, to a kayak, it's might just have been a stiff wake from a ship passing nearby. a few years back returning form bimini, i remember notice a wake a good distance away, maybe 3 or 4 ft. nothing major but enough to toss a kayak. after looking at it i finally spotter a large container ship mile away.

i've heard that satelites are being used to get some info on the frequency and severity of rogue waves, apparently they're a little more frequent than thought.
 
We have pretty strong westerlies off California in the afternoon. A buddy and I were in his Trophy, fishing for Salmon. The winds rose to 40 and we were blown in. We stopped to fish for rock fish. We could see the wind intensifying off shore. At one point, in 65' of water, a 14' wave came out of the wind storm. It was just beginning to break. My buddy, an excellent pilot, calmly reach over, started the boat and headed into and over the wave.

It's kind weird, but sometimes you can hear them coming. Instead of a roaring wind, things get quiet. Take a look and you can see a wall of water coming towards you.(blocking the noise)

The following pictures were shot off Davenport. This is a 15' wave in 70' of water on a calm day. The second pic reveals how high the wave is. This guy's antennas are 15' above the water.

BigWave1.sized.jpg


BigWave2.sized.jpg
 
lake ontario has a nasty habit of throwing one wave twice as large as the others it really shows up when we run the race boat at high speed just when you have everything setteled into a good attitude skipping across the tops of the waves hull lifted out of the water.... Wham we will get launched sometimes we can see them most often we can,t until we are right on top of it
 
Before I saw the "Rogue Waves" program on the Weather Channel, I just thought is was every 7th wave that was larger than others.

Sure you should worry.
 
Imagine catching that wave at night broadside, not knowing it was on the way in?
 
5 ft water and a small craft advisory. And they still go out on kayaks?
 
What are the thresholds that trigger a small craft advisory? Is it wind speed and wave height or just wind speed?
 
I saw a documentary where they said that rogue waves are very common, much more than historically reported.
The study was made using satellites.
That may explain all the green-men theories about the Bermuda Triangle. Not to change the subject, but I also heard an expert saying that if you draw a triangle the size of the Bermuda Triangle any place on the ocean around the world, you will find as many if not more unexplained disapparances as Bermuda.
 
Have experienced two (I think!). In 1962, transiting from Charleston SC to Faslane, Scotland we were in a pretty nasty storm. Had, IMHO, 25-30 foot waves. Out of nowhere comes this monster which was 50-55 feet. At any rate, it was clearly twice as big as what I had been suffering through for an hour or so. The second time was in 1967. We were enroute Hawaii to Japan in almost calm seas. Out of nowhere (again) comes a 4-5 wave - all by itself. It seemed to stretch forever in both directions. Don't know if these qualify. Luck. Dale
 
What were you aboard in those 50-55 footers? Nice to here about but I'm not eager to see them
 
A rogue wave isn't necessarily a wave that just happens to be bigger than most others. When offshore wave forecasts are given, the wave height given is the significant wave height, which is the average height of the highest 1/3 of the waves. There is also a wave, usually termed the "one out of a thousand wave" because in principle, this wave will occur once out of roughly every 1000 waves. The height of this wave is roughly twice the significant wave height. So, a 50-55 foot wave in a sea that is already averaging around 25-30 may be large, but that phenomenon is well-known and may not technically be the type of "rogue wave" that is now being studied.

Any wave that is higher than this "one out of a thousand wave" can be considered to be a "rogue", and there are currently many theories on why these waves occur. Much of it is suspected to do with a combination of the depth of the water, the velocity of the current relative to the wind and the interference of two or more wave systems (constructive interference building the wave).
 
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