With all that scientific measuring equipment on board, I'm sure they had no problem recording the size of the resultant dump they took in their pants!

submitter: Scientists measure record-breaking ocean waves that were so big that computer models denied that they could exist at all

Therefore the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Cool. I loved the book The Perfect Storm, and it had all sorts of info about the supposedly mythical giant waves. Thanks for posting this, submitter.

Rogue waves rock.

Therefore the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Sadly, There's probably someone, somewhere, that is trying to say this same thing for real.

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

...That's cool?

Drop a boat off a nine-story building, then lift it up and do it again...

/turns green
//spews chunks
///repeats

"There are, in general, two ways to predict the future. You can, for example, use horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, a crystal ball, and so forth. Collectively, these are known as the "nutty methods." Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer models, more commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time." While all these approaches have their advantages, I find it's a lot easier and more economical to simply make stuff up."

-Scott Adams

I'm off to barf now. Just thinking about riding out 95 foot waves for twelve hours...

grunthos !!! i just spit my peas and po tay toes over the keyboard !!!! lmao

/sigh... This is gonna hurt....

should have used "scary" tag instead.

/is afraid of the ocean
//is deathly more afraid of the ocean after article

Did anyone else get the ad to "save 75% on last minute cruises" on that page?

Gotta love the ad for a cruise right beside the article.

I think it's all Tony Blair's fault.

21 seconds too late. Stupid "Preview before post."

The ocean is scary.

Anyone else get an ad for Vacations to Go for cruises on the link?

The observations took place in 2000.

Why was I not warned of the killer waves before now!

It seriously took 6 years for them to tell us this.?

/The end is rye
//mmmm...rye (slobber slobber)

Yep, now we're *definitely* gonna need a bigger boat.

/that is all

Eddie would go.

Intelligent Wave Design.

Still think pirates < ninjas?

My understanding is that the models don't say these waves can't exist but rather that they should be very rare.

This reminds me of KITT from Knight Rider. He was always telling Michael Knight how they couldn't do things. "Michael, we can't make that jump." And you know what, Hasselhoff would go for it anyway and make it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Michael: The terrorists are getting away on land, we'll never catch them now
Knightboat: Look Michael, a river
Bart: Awww, there's always a river or a stream or a brook.
Homer: Don't disrespect Knightboat boy.

I'm shocked none of the guys have cracked jokes about the instruments recording the sizes of other things. You know, "so big that computer models denied that they could exist at all"

*sighs*

/obligatory

No longer wondering what happened to the Edmund Fitzgerald

/yeah I know it was a lake

Cue the megalomaniacs with weather control devices.

Clooonnnneeeyyy!

Scientific models are often inaccurate.

The scientists set to sea because an intense storm was forecast and the researchers from Britain's National Oceanography Center, located in Southampton, wanted to closely observe it,

These people must have brass balls the size of small planets, or just be really farking dumb.
"Look, a massive wave, 10 times higher than our boat!"
"Great, let's sail towards it!"

/by the way, did anyone get an advert for ocean crui...oh, guess you did

OK, I don't get it. Why is it that these rogue waves never hit the shore? Sure, you have tsunami, but those are all attributed to a seismic event.
The first thing I googled about rogue waves says that a previous rogue which struck cruise ships were 29 and 30 meters, bigger than 95 feet. I am thinkin these scientists are not as think as they smart they are.

Hmmm...

Shades of the Clive Cussler novel Polar Shift (without the eco terrorists and the tesla coils)

Status of the earths wobble: http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/topten_monitor.htm

While I don't necessarily agree with the site author or content, I find it interesting that all the data from solar, magnetic, earth wobble, pole position, weather and earthquake are all listed on this page for possible correlation.

I just wish there was a more mainstream site correlating all these variables in real time available.

That would be an interesting site indeed.

why am I the Weeners ?

/waves freak me out
//unless it's the crowd at an O's game

jimster: OK, I don't get it. Why is it that these rogue waves never hit the shore?

Many of these waves are very unstable, caused by the piling up of three or four smaller waves, and they usually crumble under their own weight in the open ocean. I'd imagine that a few *do* hit the shore, but somewhere like the craggy coast of Wales isn't the best spot for observers to see them.

My understanding is that the original computer models were flawed (i.e. garbage in, garbage out).

The original models didn't take into account the principle (or the full effect) of wave addition. Wereby waves originating from different locations can cross paths and cancel in places, and add their energies in others. As I further recall, areas of the oceans where currents, both wind and water, line up to make these mega waves more common, are in areas with abnormally high frequencies of heretofore unexplained or poorly explained sinkings or disappearances.

I don't recall if the Bermuda Triangle was one of those areas.

However, this isn't really new news. I seem to remember reading about it in SciAm or Discover a few years ago.

"And here comes another big one.....wwwweeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!"

/Far Side

Ninjas would stain their black pajamas brown......Pirates rock! (literally)

cowabunga?

I used to work in a fishing village on the west coast of Scotland -

An old fisherman told me they used to get caught in 60ft storms - whole boat under the water except the top of the masts...

And these were big fishing boats.

Time to buy a leash for my Weber Performer!

Laird would surf it.

In one prominent rogue-wave encounter, Capt. Ronald Warwick, who followed in his father's footsteps to command the British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II, was on the bridge at 4 a.m. on Sept. 11, 1995. Two hundred miles off Newfoundland, headed for New York, Warwick had been trying, without success, to dodge Hurricane Luis.

Minutes before monstrous seas smashed windows in the Grand Salon, 72 feet off the water, Warwick had given the order confining passengers to quarters.

Suddenly, a huge wave loomed off the bow, huge even for a ship the size of the QE2, at nearly 1,000 feet long, more than 100 feet wide, carrying nearly 3,000 people.

Hundreds of miles from shore, the face of the wave was steep, like a breaking wall of water. Warwick later described that "it looked as though the ship was headed for the white cliffs of Dover."

Officers on the bridge estimated the wave at 92 feet, because they were eyeball to eyeball with the crest.

"(I)t broke with tremendous force over the bow. An incredible shudder went through the ship, followed a few minutes later by two smaller shudders," Warwick recalled in a 1996 article in Marine Observer.

The ship's bow dropped into a "hole" of a trough behind the first wave and was hit by a second wave of between 91 and 96 feet high that cleaned a mast right off the foredeck.

Warwick, his passengers and crew were lucky. No one was injured. It was a far different fate for the German container ship Munchen, which sank in the middle of the Atlantic in 1978 with no warning, no May Day.

The brits have apparently never been to Hawaii



There are some freaky big waves at Diamond Head

Damn... I had 20 foot seas in the Drake Passage (on my way back from Antarctica) and spent two days lying on my back trying not to puke. 95', I would have jumped overboard.

Above poster has never been to diamonhead. A true poseur.

*Conspiricy global warming post warning*

Is it me, or is it getting hot in here?
so hot

/so take off all your clothes

There are some freaky big waves at Diamond Head

Jaws and Cortes Bank and Shipstearn and Teahupo.

geosprint:

How little you know. I have actually been to hawaii 6 times

suck it

/cowbunga

Not the biggest but it's my favorite surf pic (from norcal):

http://www.mavsurfer.com/wallpaper/images/brock2_1024x768.jpg

Is it this tub?

http://www.rrsdiscovery.com/

How the hell would this survive 95' waves?

maybe Disney can make a ride out of it.

etoof:

Therefore the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Sadly, There's probably someone, somewhere, that is trying to say this same thing for real.

SO, when it IS what they say, they're right, when it AIN'T what they say they're STILL right?

When are they ever WRONG!

Sounds UNHUMAN!

Yay, another big wave thread. I can post my favorite big wave pic again.


The tanker in the pic, the S/R Puget Sound, is 106 feet across her beam.

Is it this tub?

http://www.rrsdiscovery.com/

How the hell would this survive 95' waves?

They just got back from Durmstrang

heheh monsignorguru -

No, that's Captain Cook's ship from about 1800 or something - 1850 maybe.

This is it here - still doesn't look that big really

http://www.ifm.uni-kiel.de/allgemein/news/presse/discovery_zenk-Dateien/image0 02.jpg

Dave L

jimster - rogue waves are the result of constructive interference of several smaller (relative) waves. Storms create swells which combine with wind driven waves from other systems, typically higher the longer fetch they have to form, and higher and of shorter wavelength when the wind is bucking the tide. Close to shore, storm power is dissapated at a greater rate than in the open ocean, and the directions from which contributing wave trains can originate are restricted by the landmass.

bobooty

Umm, get a grip. The photo you are posting is from MAUI! A little place called Jaws...

Now, if you want big waves cold and scary (think sharks and big rocks), Mavricks is the place, or Cortez Bank...

No Catchy Nickname


These people must have brass balls the size of small planets, or just be really farking dumb.
"Look, a massive wave, 10 times higher than our boat!"
"Great, let's sail towards it!"

And that is why I love science...

"Hey I wonder if this will cure cancer."
"I don't know, let's eat it and find out."
"OK."

When they have the sailing races around the world they sail from Cape Town to Sydney for one of the segments/stages. That means a few weeks of 20' to 40' seas on a daily basis just about. Often a beam sea (boat people will get what that means). In the solo race the boats aren't much past 64'. And people volunteer to do this. They're not threatened with the deaths of their family members or anything. And then there is making it around Cape Horn.

/now needs to change underwear after remembering footage from race boats

bobbooty

North Shore-Yes
Diamond Head- you sure?

Lived in Hawaii

Meh... this is nothing new. The linkified documentary does far more justice than any article/picture.

rivetboy

Was thinking the same thing.

/big fan of sunset beach
//don't live in Hawaii though :(
///go distant relatives GO!!!

2006-04-03 07:12:56 PM bobbooty


geosprint:

How little you know. I have actually been to hawaii 6 times

suck it

Then you, my friend, are not a particularly asute observer. There is absolutely no way that your picture was taken at Diamondhead unless the Earth ground to a halt, stopped on its axis, and started spinning the other direction.

Dimaondhead is on the Southeastern portion of the island, fairly near Waikiki, a place more famous for its unbrella drinks than its enormous waves. You maybe find waves 3-5 feet there, usually less. Right next door to Diamondhead is Hannama Bay, which has no waves at all, and then North of that, if I remember correctly, is Sandy beach, maybe 7 foot waves tops.

That picture is clearly from the North Shore (if it is Oahu anyway).

My grandfather has a pic from WWII of a carrier after their convoy had been through a typhoon. It had dug into a huge wave that bent the flight decks down at a 90 degree angle. It looked like someone had just picked it up and bent it like a toy.

I wonder how a boat with a swath hull would hold up in waves that big. Swath hulls are like catamaran hulls except they go a lot farther down. Seen footage of a swath hull boat in 40' seas barely rocking while a regular boat was rolling and pitching like crazy.

castufari:

Time to buy a leash for my Weber Performer!

Laird would surf it.

Hell yes, he would....And dude, isn't teahupo'o bigger than diamond head or jaws?

and hello, all three of them tower over mavericks....why don't we start comparing el porto to todos? (eyes roll)

/mav is just rougher water
//...and way colder
///...and more rocks
////deadliest doesn't always = biggest
/////slashie attack!

correction: 2 of the 3 of them tower over mavericks.

go ahead, call me a poser. whatev.

i'll take the wheel

/hold my cocktail will ya
//rather be sailing

It's sad that these models have lead to the death of so many seafarers. then again, i can't see how you could build a ship economically to survive anything more than the standard "100 year wave". you'd end up by putting so much steel into the structure, you'd have no space for cargo.

/marine engineer
//with some naval architecture too

No Poseidon references yet?!

Umm, SCARY Tag?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freak_wave

We're not just talking about a rogue wave if they were hit by these things for 12 hours.

Maybe it was just one large wave that kept coming back at them.

/no clue

Bodhi says "100% pure adrenaline!"

submitter

thanks ever so much for the experience of having The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in my head for another three weeks. Last time this happened was a thread about the anniversary of the sinking.

Where was The Posideon?

\Old enough to have seen the original movie
\\Wants to see the remake
\\\But only until the wave flips the ship over.

rlrevell

If that's THE Typhoon, then you're grandaddy went through what's considered the worst evar.

Its quoted in sailing books.

To any of you who have never been seasick, I mean REALLY seasick. You cannot even imagine it. Once I was working on an offshore oil platform and had to take a boat back in very rough seas for ten hours.
I threw up so much I couldnt through up any more only heaving. If someone would have put a gun to my head I would have begged him for release. When we finally got back to shore I literaly crawled off of the boat as I was so weak.

Hell yes, he would....And dude, isn't teahupo'o bigger than diamond head or jaws?

That pic he posted was Jaws.

Teahupo'o...that thing is insanely thick. Even when it's small a bit it's still all lip.

Regardless, I'd need new undies after a trpi through one of those places.

Are these models built by the same guys that do climate models?

Ambitwistor

Awesome pic there. I live where that was taken.

I've heard estimates of 18-22' waves on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, it may not sound like much, until you replace several hundred feet of boat with a 14', 12' or 10' raft, 8" above the waterline! This is where river waves then become giants! I relate in a way to "A Perfect Storm" due to an attempted run in a "10" rated rapid, we jumped into it, and almost made it up and out the other side - when we stalled, slid back down into it, turned and flipped! My passenger said after that that "I could run anything anyway I wanted" (he then flipped me in another rapid about a week later!)

Rogue Surf: attempted run in a "10" rated rapid,

A "10"? What kind of newfangled grading system is that? (Unless of course its off the top of the 1 - 6 grading system)...

Wow, that is one hell of a pic HagarTheHorrible.

Shogun - "A "10"? What kind of newfangled grading system is that? (Unless of course its off the top of the 1 - 6 grading system)..."

The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon is still under the Western River Scale (1-10) rather than the more familiar Class I - V (VI = "Unrunnable") scale of most rivers. It has 2 #10 rated rapids, several 8-9 and many 6-7. I hope that helps!

Heck, when I was aboard the USS Enterprise in a typhoon in the South China Sea in either 76 or 78, we were taking green water over the bow onto the flight deck. That flight deck is 70 feet above the waterline. It was really cool watching the wave go down the flight deck, even more cool watching the geysers shooting through the joints in the hangar bay-elevator doors! The few aircraft we couldn't get down to the hangar bay were stuck behind the island so it acted as a breakwater, but they were still damaged.

I'd just like to point out that the woman alongside said article is hot.


(regardless of our political views, we can all agree on that...or can we? this is Fark, after all.)

SSpiffy:Heck, when I was aboard the USS Enterprise in a typhoon in the South China Sea in either 76 or 78, we were taking green water over the bow onto the flight deck.

You're lucky it didn't get into the engine room...It's hard to go into warp if your dilithium crystals get wet!

Everyone knows computers are "just a theory", and mysteries like this are proof that we should give equal time to "intelligent ones and zeroes".

I was 28 the first time I was in the Ocean; it was at Mission Beach in San Diego. I went body-boarding for 4-5 hours and had the time of my life. The waves were only about 3-4 feet (which standing in front of them look like 8-10 footers above you) but goddamn they were scary.

For the next 3days, everytime I closed my eyes, the image of those big ass walls of water were burned into my vision, and I got a little of burst or the adrenaline from that feeling. I felt scared and excited for everybit of that 3days after.

/ still can't believe people surf 60ft waves
// love slashies
/// love hot beach babes even more
////did I mention the slashies

This news article seems to indicate that the advertising for the Poseidon Adventure is going well. The same way there were tons of reports about cataclysmic storms around the time those moviews were coming out

Often a beam sea (boat people will get what that means).

Just for that, I'm not even gonna look it up. So there.

/wonders why someone would admit that most readers don't know the term, and then fail to explain the term

The tsunamis caused by the Chixulub asteroid impact were over two miles high (12,000'+). For real.


/surf that.

Lived on Oahu for awhile. Sandy's was not known for the big swell, just the killer break. And by "killer," I mean that quite literally. Nothing like getting pounded down "pile-driver" style into dry sand...

/Makapu'u haole
//git off'a my wave bruddah