NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Freak? wave pummels cruise ship
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2005 May 6, 14:10 -0400
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2005 May 6, 14:10 -0400
Peter- I suppose the media ignored their correct name (rogue waves, meaning they are individuals, rogues, not part of a normal wave system/train) either because their advertisers didn't want people to think these waves are normal, or because there are no science staff left at the TVNooze. There was a report about a year ago, maybe less, along the lines that the radar(?) equipment on one of the spacecraft had been used to look into how common rogue waves were, by measuring changes in sea state at many points. IIRC their preliminary result was that something like 1-2000 "rogue" waves were likely in one year. Most are never reported since they rise and die at sea, unseen. (I didn't note the details, someone please feel free to correct me if you have them at hand.) Of course, telling the happy vacationers that monster 110+ foot waves are *normal* and their pleasure palaces are not invulnerable would be very bad for the cruise business. Apparently the last ship that made the news here in the US had been ordered into bad wx in order to get it back to port for part of a TV shoot. That may have had something to do with why this incident happened.