A nasty wave!

[SVTatia]

Nice video, imagine being 12 meters lower than where you were…

But, IMHO the “splash” was caused by the bow wave, it can be clearly seen that the water that was “pushed” against the incoming wave created the explosion. The tops were curled and being toppled but they were not breaking as such. It would be a different situation if the ship was stationary.
Good footage.

[Fiveslide]

Good one. I've never been able to truly capture big seas on a camera.

I was videoing on a delivery, pretty big following seas, waves higher than the first spreader on the cat. They weren't that steep, just big rollers and otherwise perfect, sunny weather. Water looked a little lumpy when I played it back.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by SVTatia

But, IMHO the “splash” was caused by the bow wave, it can be clearly seen that the water that was “pushed” against the incoming wave created the explosion. The tops were curled and being toppled but they were not breaking as such. It would be a different situation if the ship was stationary.
Good footage.

You are absolutely right about the wave that goes over the bow, but the wave I was referring to happened earlier, at 11 seconds in the video just ahead of the ship, I was very lucky to have my phone out and ready and just captured it, but it was only after reviewing the footage on film that the sheer violence of that wave was evident. It instantly reminded me of the shallow water breakers at shipsterns bluff in tassie, caused by a big underwater rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBnA1V8SZdw

It amazed me that this kind of wave could form in so regular and otherwise easy seas. So whilst it wasn't at true rogue height, (sig wave ht x2) or about 18 meters in this case. Its shape was very dangerous and very rare in this type of seastate. Somewhere with strong currents like the gulf stream or around shallower water this may be more common, and perhaps we had ventured into a backeddy in the Antarctic circumpolar current, but even then the general seastate was not too bad, with very regular seas although they were big.

[Jim Cate]

I was stationed on a light cruiser in the navy, 610 ft long 66 ft beam, 28000 lb displacement.

Light cruiser??? That's surely an ultra-ultra light cruiser! Should be fast downwind even without sails!

Jim

[bletso]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Light cruiser??? That's surely an ultra-ultra light cruiser! Should be fast downwind even without sails!

Jim

Actually 28000 ton my bad

[Pauls]

Nice posts, Snowpetrel.

Although the factors we are familiar with - bottom shape/depth and current can cause steep faced and breaking waves, I don't see that they explain the occasional true rogue wave. These, by definition, occur where there isn't a conventional explanation. I have 2 examples, personally experienced.

#1, I was onboard the USS San Jose, about 560' length, in the South China Sea, 1973. It was a rough night, we were taking the waves on our port beam, I suppose the ship was rolling about 10 degrees. Nothing of any significance. Sometime in the early morning, maybe 2:00 AM, we were hit with a huge wave. The ship started rolling and the roll accelerated and kept going. She went over so far it seemed certain she was going all the way over. The roll slowed, slowed some more and eventually stopped. She just hung there for a bit, then gradually came back up. We had a recording inclinometer on the bridge which captured max roll. We had come within 3 degrees of the limit of positive stability. Nobody saw the wave, it was pitch black, but it damn near capsized a full sized ship and the roll was instrument measured. All the rest of the waves that night were normal for that sea state. The rogue was an only one, all by itself and massive.

#2 example was very different conditions. It was late morning, brilliantly clear and bright, wonderful visibility. I was at the helm, we were crossing between San Clemente and Catalina Islands, a channel about 26 miles wide, and we were mid channel. It's deep water there. Winds the previous night were recorded at San Clemente Island as 45 knots, gusting 55. By morning the wind had dropped to 25 knots. Waves were moving down the channel, 10-12 feet and steep as you would expect shortly after a blow. At mid channel, miles to windward, I noticed something on the horizon. It looked like the horizon but it was too close. Just a grey line stretching across the windward horizon. Maybe 5 minutes later it was close enough that I could see detail. It was a huge wave. Huge by itself is not dangerous, I've seen 25' waves (estimated as best I could without instruments) in mid Pacific that would have perfectly safe in an overloaded canoe. Wavelength was huge, slope was so slight that the only way you tell where on the wave you were was by distance to the visible horizon. This wave had a face that was close to vertical. I turned square into it and slowed the boat. I didn't want to hit that wall of water with speed. As we rose on top of the last wave before the rogue, say the boat was 12 feet above mean water level. At the helm my head was 10 feet above water level, ie 22 feet above mean water level. The overhead blocked my view of the top of the wave and I had to press my forehead against the windshield and look up at about 30-40 degrees to see the wave top. The wave, viewed closely, was not just steep. It was going concave and was going to break. As we dropped down into the trough it broke, very close in front of the bow, and that is what we hit. There was a huge bang and the world went dark grey for a few seconds while the wave rolled over us. then we popped out the back side and the light came back on.

We had a short mast above the wheelhouse, masthead height was 16 feet. On top of the mast was a lightning rod, a piece of bronze round bar. The wave bent it straight back. So we had solid water at least 16 feet high over the boat.

That wave, again, was singular. All the other waves that day were typical, similar to each other. I certainly can't explain the rogue by bottom contour, current, etc. Hundreds of waves before and after it were normal. One interesting point from my observation was that the rogue had an observed duration of at least 5 minutes. It was not a pop up from 2 waves intersecting. (There was no cross sea running). And it did eventually break.

As I said, I believe in strong boats. At the time of the 2nd rogue I'd been designing a catamaran to cruise the Pacific. That wave would capsize anything small enough to be called a boat. I was very fortunate to hit it when I did, when I could see it and after it had broken. At night it would have hit us on the beam and I wouldn't be here writing this. I quit on long range multis after that, decided I'd rather have something that could recover from a capsize.

[Don C L]

Yeah, you can dodge the bigger ones during the daylight hours if you're paying attention, but at night... ugh.
Many years ago my father took me in a flight across the Santa Barbara Channel in his Cessna 195 on a windy day. There were white caps, but then he said "look at that!" Below us, alone among the white caps was one long large breaking wave that continued for quite a while. From 5000' feet up I couldn't tell how big it was but it stuck out like a sore thumb. It left an impression on me.

[Snowpetrel]

Interesting this talk about rogues. I've seen a couple in my time and felt a few but not seen them. Its a shame their are so few video's of these waves, but this will change now that nearly everybody has a smartphone or gopro handy. But they really are rare, especially in the large sizes and the video I took doesn't even honestly count as a true rogue due to it only being about 1.7x sig wave height.

The biggest rogue I ever saw was during a force 10-11 westerly the Aussie Bight during winter. Our 240 meter Container ship was hove to, slowsteaming into 10+ meter seas at 7 knots or so, when an incredibly deep and steep trough rolled down our starboard side. It must have been 20-25 meters deep, like a trench cut into the water. Fortunately it missed us but as we rolled to starboard it looked like we were hanging over a deep gorge.

Incredibly it wasn't breaking and the water looked like a waterfall flowing up the wave. I only really got a glimpse of it before it was gone but it sure was an eye opener. Something like that could break a ship.

Another one flooded our 28 foot yacht on the way from NZ to tonga. Just came out of nowhere in 30-35 knots at about 20 degrees off the wind angle. It knocked is down, broached the gybed us. The force of water bent the strong windvane, ripped the trimtab off the rudder and tore a shelf of the galley (the top dropboard was out). We had to bale with buckets for 30 minutes to get the water out of the boat, and there was a fair bit of damage on deck, everything below was soaked, and the electronics progresively died over the next few days. Not much fun!

[Snowpetrel]

https://youtu.be/wcUk0RDMpNI

Two good waves on this video, one at 14 seconds and the other near 1 min 14. The first is a bit of a narrow plunging breaker. The second looks like a wider rolling breaker. This is off the eastern coast of south america possibly feeling the effects of the brazil current and shallower waters.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

https://youtu.be/wcUk0RDMpNI

Two good waves on this video, one at 14 seconds and the other near 1 min 14. The first is a bit of a narrow plunging breaker. The second looks like a wider rolling breaker. This is off the eastern coast of south america possibly feeling the effects of the brazil current and shallower waters.

interesting. it appears stern is not buoyant on this boat. i guess guys were for a bit retro experience.

wonder how modern cruising mono or cat would handle this. Mono has natural brakes, which can be good or bad, but for cat is best strategy is to let have bit more speed and steering around bad stuff. i guess one day, i will find out myself.

[Cheechako]

Nice videos guys, thanks for sharing.

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

interesting. it appears stern is not buoyant on this boat. i guess guys were for a bit retro experience.

wonder how modern cruising mono or cat would handle this. Mono has natural brakes, which can be good or bad, but for cat is best strategy is to let have bit more speed and steering around bad stuff. i guess one day, i will find out myself.

Yeah, she is an old design, very low freeboard, and wet on deck. The big plus to this kind of boat is a real easy ride even in nasty stuff. The waves just wash over her and down below all you notice is more rolling and a gentle thump as the breaker hits. But it sure is wet on deck! Kind of like a submarine...

A more modern design is much more likely to be thrown sideways by the impact due to less weight and higher more exposed topsides for the fast moving water to hit. But then again if you are going fast enough the water hits with less impact, so its all a bit variable. I will say that I wasnt on this boat. Its not my video so I really don't know the exact situation.

Here is a boat I was on be being struck by a decent southern ocean wave. Unfortunately I didn't see the shape and size of the wave, but it must have been a fair bit bigger than the rest with a decent crest to do this to a 64 foot boat.

Long version at 9mins
https://youtu.be/CJMIBbt2svo

Short version
https://youtu.be/hMBKybEwrFw

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

https://youtu.be/wcUk0RDMpNI

Two good waves on this video, one at 14 seconds and the other near 1 min 14. The first is a bit of a narrow plunging breaker. The second looks like a wider rolling breaker. This is off the eastern coast of south america possibly feeling the effects of the brazil current and shallower waters.

On that track ( Le Maire to Mar del Plata ) more likely to be under the effect of the north going Falklands Current.

However... you can get serious wind over tide effects a *very* long way offshore from Cabo Virgenes, Santa Cruz and Puerto Deseado.... with *very* steep seas....

[Snowpetrel]

^^ thanks for that bot of local knowledge Ping, I've only done one run under sail from the Falklands to Ushuia, but we saw some horrific breaking seas in Le Maire straits, but that was tidal stuff where the south flowing tide meats the southern ocean swell. Not a place to be in a real blow for sure.

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by Pauls

Nice posts, Snowpetrel.

Although the factors we are familiar with - bottom shape/depth and current can cause steep faced and breaking waves, I don't see that they explain the occasional true rogue wave. These, by definition, occur where there isn't a conventional explanation. I have 2 examples, personally experienced.

#1, I was onboard the USS San Jose, about 560' length, in the South China Sea, 1973. It was a rough night, we were taking the waves on our port beam, I suppose the ship was rolling about 10 degrees. Nothing of any significance. Sometime in the early morning, maybe 2:00 AM, we were hit with a huge wave. The ship started rolling and the roll accelerated and kept going. She went over so far it seemed certain she was going all the way over. The roll slowed, slowed some more and eventually stopped. She just hung there for a bit, then gradually came back up. We had a recording inclinometer on the bridge which captured max roll. We had come within 3 degrees of the limit of positive stability. Nobody saw the wave, it was pitch black, but it damn near capsized a full sized ship and the roll was instrument measured. All the rest of the waves that night were normal for that sea state. The rogue was an only one, all by itself and massive.

#2 example was very different conditions. It was late morning, brilliantly clear and bright, wonderful visibility. I was at the helm, we were crossing between San Clemente and Catalina Islands, a channel about 26 miles wide, and we were mid channel. It's deep water there. Winds the previous night were recorded at San Clemente Island as 45 knots, gusting 55. By morning the wind had dropped to 25 knots. Waves were moving down the channel, 10-12 feet and steep as you would expect shortly after a blow. At mid channel, miles to windward, I noticed something on the horizon. It looked like the horizon but it was too close. Just a grey line stretching across the windward horizon. Maybe 5 minutes later it was close enough that I could see detail. It was a huge wave. Huge by itself is not dangerous, I've seen 25' waves (estimated as best I could without instruments) in mid Pacific that would have perfectly safe in an overloaded canoe. Wavelength was huge, slope was so slight that the only way you tell where on the wave you were was by distance to the visible horizon. This wave had a face that was close to vertical. I turned square into it and slowed the boat. I didn't want to hit that wall of water with speed. As we rose on top of the last wave before the rogue, say the boat was 12 feet above mean water level. At the helm my head was 10 feet above water level, ie 22 feet above mean water level. The overhead blocked my view of the top of the wave and I had to press my forehead against the windshield and look up at about 30-40 degrees to see the wave top. The wave, viewed closely, was not just steep. It was going concave and was going to break. As we dropped down into the trough it broke, very close in front of the bow, and that is what we hit. There was a huge bang and the world went dark grey for a few seconds while the wave rolled over us. then we popped out the back side and the light came back on.

We had a short mast above the wheelhouse, masthead height was 16 feet. On top of the mast was a lightning rod, a piece of bronze round bar. The wave bent it straight back. So we had solid water at least 16 feet high over the boat.

That wave, again, was singular. All the other waves that day were typical, similar to each other. I certainly can't explain the rogue by bottom contour, current, etc. Hundreds of waves before and after it were normal. One interesting point from my observation was that the rogue had an observed duration of at least 5 minutes. It was not a pop up from 2 waves intersecting. (There was no cross sea running). And it did eventually break.

As I said, I believe in strong boats. At the time of the 2nd rogue I'd been designing a catamaran to cruise the Pacific. That wave would capsize anything small enough to be called a boat. I was very fortunate to hit it when I did, when I could see it and after it had broken. At night it would have hit us on the beam and I wouldn't be here writing this. I quit on long range multis after that, decided I'd rather have something that could recover from a capsize.

The first wave I cannot explain but the second one maybe: subsea landslide. Years ago I was in the bay of Kotor, in Monenegro. If any of y'all have been there, it is like a bathtub...perfectly calm, flat, warm water for many miles, because while it is close to 28 kilometers deep, its mouth is only about 300 meters across. The walls of the bay are extremely steep; they call it (erroneously the most southerly fjord in the northern hemisphere.

Anyway, I used to live nearby and was there a lot, and one day, on that perfectly flat water, while I was on an air mattress swimming very near shore, I saw three humps form in the water. Not quite sure why but done with swimming anyway, I padded in pretty quick...kinda got that 'can you beat the imaginary murderer in the stairwell at night fumbling for your keys' feeling No sooner had I made it out and up on the rocks, the humps turned into waves and crashed in perfect perfect tubes beneath me. Nothing severe, maybe 1 meter or 1.5 meter. But on a bay known for absolutely zero wave activity. Only thing I could come up with was a small landslide on the steep bottom. A local confirmed it a while later.

So. Maybe the second wave was a small (or not so small) slide?