Monster Wave!! Is this for real??

I'm sure that the chances of encountering a wave like that are pretty good, especially in winter North Atlantic conditions.

A few years ago I was talking to the then Master of the MSY 'Wind Star' - he told me that some years earlier (early '90's I think) he was the Chief Officer on the QE II and on one voyage from Southampton to New York they encountered one of these 100' waves during a winter storm. They stuffed the bow into it, and it broke onto the focsle - stove in the focsle deck plating apparently - and I understand that they had pretty solid green water on the bridge.
And this C/O was prone to understating conditions, certainly never embellishing them!
 
Thought I had seen this one some time back, didn't someone on here id it as being a ferry in Scotland, and I thought they also said that despite the skipper being confident to leave port, he did return as promptly as he was able?
 
The last boat only looks small to me, so guess the 'monster wave' isn't as big as looking at the first ship of two suggests.

That's not to say it doesn't happen though, judging by the damaged ships that appear in Cape Town.

Definately fairly steep wave though.
 
It's the Suilven, 2000 gross tons, 86 metres long, formerly a Cal-Mac ferry running from Stornoway to Ullapool, but seen here in a later life in New Zealand.
 
I recently (about a month ago) watched a documentary of about 30mins explaining (statistically) the phenomenon and then verifying it with the help of satelites. The conclusion was that this explains some unexplicable total losses.

In the beginning they assumed that it only happens when there is a strong current at the opposite direction, but then they found out that it is purely statistical. There is a mathematical model emulating the phenomenon. The whole documentary was very serious...

I' m afraid that it's true...
 
Good point. I presume you mean the youtube posted by Richard? I have just looked at it a few times, and I realise now that the vessel in the aerial video footage is many times bigger than the one at the end, where the wave knocks out the wheelhouse window.
The vessel with the stove in window is probably a Fisheries patrol vessel or similar - very different to a big ferry!

Ooops, sorry - I should have read the comments below the video before offering opinions - these seem to confirm that this video has two different vessels in it.
 
There was a documentary on recently about monster waves or I believe they called them "rogue" waves. It all started with the loss of the "Munchen" - new boat, lost without a single signal, no trace etc. They found her and dug her up to find no apparent reason for her sinking but she had some very odd features - like hefty brackets that carried the lifeboats were bent backwards and the L/boats were carried on the bridge deck level!!!

Then a wave height recording device on an unmanned gas platform in the N.Sea recorded a wave so big that nobody could believe it.

So the scientists started to ask and look around the merchant fleets and found numerous reports of "rogue" waves.

The QE2 encountered a wave so big that it went over the bridge, another Swedish ship purpose built to take sightseers around Antarctica hit one which blew out all the bridge windows, knocked out all the electronics and stopped the engines - they interviewed the first officer who described the event and it frightened the shite out of me - wall of water 100' high with the biggest trough in front of it he had ever seen.

Numerous piccies and accounts from S.Africa where the Agulhas Current was found to be responsible - now shipping companies avoid the main current and run a course further off-shore.

Finally, A German woman scientist was able to get the use of a special satellite with very sensitive radar equipment to scan the worlds oceans measuring wave heights and found God knows how many of these "rogue" waves every day of the week.

The bottom line is they know they (rogue waves) exist, they think they know how they come into being - large wave "eats up" the wave in front of it causing a larger wave with a bigger trough, then it finally makes it into the big boys league when that wave eats the next wave. The only saving grace is that for reasons they don't yet understand, these rogue waves rarely exceed a couple of Nm's in linear length.

Peter.
 
That was the old Caledonian MacBrayne Suilven which was, by then, in service beween North and South Island, NZ; now based in Fiji.

Lost the link to the storm scene (off South Island as I recall). Used to be on a US government or US Navy site.
 
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So what are the odds of surviving such a wave in a small sailing boat?

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It's a very different motion in a small boat - you would likely not bury the bow as much, though the heaving up and down may make you so seasick, that you'd wish you were dead. Large ships tend to pick up a lot of momentum on the way down the backside of larger waves (30+ footers) and plow in a lot. Those greenies over the bow are pretty commonplace.
 
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