Ship-sinking monster waves revealed by ESA satellites

Rogue waves now fact not fiction!

21 July 2004
Once dismissed as a nautical myth, freakish ocean waves that rise as tall as ten-storey apartment blocks have been accepted as a leading cause of large ship sinkings. Results from ESA's ERS satellites helped establish the widespread existence of these 'rogue' waves and are now being used to study their power.

www.esa.int...

The reason I posted this article is that in 1997 I was on my fathers boat about 15 miles off Key West Fla. We were fishing for Yellow tail snapper on a beautiful December morning. We were at anchor, 30 ft of water right on the edge of the Florida reef in 2-3 foot seas. Like I said a beautiful day!

Fishing was fare, the sky was clear, visability 10 miles. We were at anchor with several other boats spaced about 500 feet apart.

Then all of a sudden, one of the boats sounded its horn, 3 short blast, repeated several times. Well about the time we figured out what was going on we sat it, a 20 foot wave was comming right at us, we had just enough time to get the boat turned into the wave, but not all the way around. The wave, before it hit us sucked the boat down and all we saw was water, my dad reached around and cut free the anchor line and the wave hit us on the bow, port side.

The wave came over the boat and we both held on for our lives, it completly covered the boat and the others around us. The force of the water was unlike anything I have felt before, it pounded us to the deck and flushed me out into open water.

Things happened so fast there was no time to don floatation devices, once in the water and the wave passed, I grabbed hold of a 100 qt cooler and looked for my dad, he was still in the boat, battered and bloody.

The boat was swamped, but we were both alive, the emergency bildge pumps kicked on before I made it back to the boat.

My dad helped me back onto the swamped boat and we checked each other over for wounds, nothing to severe! We looked around to assess the situation and to gathered our composure, the other boaters seemed to be ok as well, wet, but alive.

It was I day I will never forget, we bailed out the boat with chum buckets and with the assist of the boats pumps we were afloat. It took a couple of hours to get dried out and underway, we lost one motor from hydrolock, and multiple fishing tackle items and coolers were also gone, but we were alive.

The rogue wave that hit us was small in terms of size, but its destructive power was intense and my respect of the ocean and water has been changed forever!

john

SIRR, Were there storm in the atlantic when this happened? Was there a hurricane or one brewing?

Wow...Pretty scary stuff.Glad no one perished.

I like the term Rogue Wave. Sounds cool. This wave is out there just looking for boats. I laught at a Rogue wave, How can there be such a thing. 200 supertankers have been sunk, and this is the first pic of said wave.

Can you say, controling the weather? Thats what it sounds like to me.

[edit on 22-7-2004 by SpittinCobra]

Yes, we were in the Atlantic ocean, right on the edge of the reef, about 15 miles out at sea.

The waters depth at this location is around 30 feet on the reef to around 300 feet off the reef. My dad fishes right on the edge where the reef drops off, and depending in the current direction will determine if you float on the reef or over open water, we were right on the edge of the reef when the wave hit.

There was no storm, no clouds, just a wave. Apparently the wave broke right at the reef, and we were sitting on the reef. Reports in the lower Keys at that time reported a swell of water that washed onto and over seawalls but subsided as quickly as it arrived. I will have to ask my dad if there was ever an explanation onto why this happened.

Im not sure that these mamoth waves are the result of someone controling the weather, ( well never say never )
I just think that this is nature at her most powerfull, like a hurrican etc on land.

I remember watching a programme on this on the discovery channel a while ago, and it said something about ships not being built strong enough to withstand these sort of waves.
Crazy really seeing how many ships have been lost to this as a result of nature.

Still Crazy world we live in.

Methyl Hydrate / sesmic event is most likely, I would say. These waves have been know to exist for a long time. The only question is the mechanics involved.

Once I was on a beach in flordia and anyhow it was a nice clear day. Most waves reached a maximum of only 3 feet high. Then all of a sudden a ten foot came crashing in about eight feet into the beech. This happened back in December of 96-97 can't remember which. It was around the Ft. Lauderdale area. It doesn't sound like much but it was realy weird. Well at least this means sailors won't be called crazy when the talk about rogue waves.

[edit on 7/22/2004 by cyberdude78]

[edit on 7/22/2004 by cyberdude78]

Great find SIRR1 and facinating story. I'm always amazed that people have been on this earth for millenium and we're just now "discovering" this kind of thing.

I understand the concept of these waves on the ocean but I have also herd of them on Lake Superior being 100 feet tall. Kind of scarry when you think about them.

Ok I've seen some scary stuff in lake michigan because of the wind but maybe some kind of geological event could cause 100 foot waves. But if theres a geological event that could do that to a lake, the waves are probably the least of your worries.