Want to get sea sick ? Watch this video.

The oil tanker ESSO LANGUEDOC encounters a 100' rogue wave while rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Once dismissed as miths of the sea and the stuff of legends, rogue waves are huge terrifying waves ofter reaching 30 meters, or 90 feet high. Satellite images taken from space have document these awsome watery phenomenon. Scientists have speculated that ocean winds, currents and certain land forms pile up water that are unpredictable and appear suddenly without warning. These waves are in all oceans mostly occuring in the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Ships that are caught often disappear with out a trace, as what happend in 1980 with the SS POET, carrying 13,500 tons of corn from Philadelphia to Port Said, Egypt. The same to a German freighter, MS MUNCHEN in 1978 in mid-Atlantic. Only a twisted lifeboat from this ship was found. The North Sea oil platform, SEA DROVNER, was pushed over. This structure stood 90 feet above the water surface. In 2001, the tourist ship, NEW CALEDONIAN STAR, had its bridge windows knocked out at 98 feet above the water in the South Atlantic. It is doubtful that experiences told on this thread would be alive today had they been through a rogue wave.

Happy modeling     Crackers  

I remember hearing or reading about a carrier in WWII, toward the end, that had the first 90 feet or so of the flight deck rolled up to vertical by diving into a trough in a typhoon the fleet got caught in.

Captain, with a good sense of humor, suggested it would make a great sail with the right wind.  Can't remember if it was a CV or CVL.

My old boss was old Navy guy on a sub tender and got caught a hundred miles off the northwest coast in the Columbus Day storm in '62.  Siad they had 15 feet of green water coming over the bow.

Hmm;

 I do believe that is why I breathed a sigh of relief .There were two Billets then open . A D.C Petty officer on an L.S.T. and the Can . After seeing the LST in drydock I was glad it weren't me going there !

While getting a ketch over the Gulf Stream in the middle of a Spring frontal squall line does have its moments; a County Class LST in a long fetch and a contrary gale beats it.

High freeboard forward and along the superstructure, a shallow foot, and a sharply rising counter are not an ideal hull form for a gale.  The bow wants to bounce out of the waves, and the stern is equally light.  All while the bow is trying to weathervane right about.

Mind it did not help that the roll was distinctly unpleasant at the best of times.  Having a couple Compaines aof Marines embarked kind of made it worse.

Anchorage was a much more pleasant ship in a sea.

I was stationed on a Spruance class destroyer, while not as small of a ship as the one in the video, we still got tossed around pretty good. in '99 we chased a Russian sub up the west coast line of the US toward Alaska. The further north we went, the rougher the seas were, until we were hitting 20' waves. One night, I didn't sleep because I was litterally holding onto my rack to keep from falling out.

A few years later, we attempted to perform an unrep in rough seas (not quite as rough as our time near Alaska, and nowhere near as rough as the video). We had to perform an emergency breakaway to avoid colliding with the supply ship. Someone from the supply ship snapped a picture of us as we pulled away. The picture made its way to the internet as one of the more popular search images for the ship.

Those that have been to sea have stories they can tell about green water on the decks, 30 ton boats moving in their cradles, inclinometers moving in territory that was never seen before. What is hard to imagine when you are sitting in a comfortable chair working on a model of a large ship is how the sea can move an object that large around. The power of the sea is truly awsome.

Alright All Ya'll !

 Try this on for size . Gearing Class FRAM Destroyer in Typhoon Hanna ! Can you say Broken Inclinometer ? Screws out of the water ? Worst shaking I ever experienced . And that's two of those beasts . 

    We were in safety belts rigged by the Bos'ns for us on the bridge . The Damage Control senior Petty Officer was on the bridge for these storms . Captains orders . Steering was by manual crew in aft steering room .Hydraulics failed . So I had to communicate with them by sound powered phones .

 Where was I ? On the Helm . Why ? I knew about the twist in our keel you could see only in drydock . It made handling her interesting . When we dived into a wave she would twist and roll immediately to the port side . Keeping that ship on course then was a real chore .

 We cracked right in front of the hangar on the 01 deck .That was part of the Aluminum they added . Who on board could weld aluminum ? You guessed it . Me , Myself and I .

 I always wondered why I had to learn that . I did it way before we were FRAMMED . She was all steel then . Who would've thought a ship could flex that much ? Plus we were navigating with armor storm plates mounted on the bridge . All the windows no longer existed !

 Knowing how big the Midway was from Refueling and such , a day or two earlier . It scared the whampus out of me when I saw her dive into a sea and saw blue water roll down the deck smashing against the island ! Remember , we're talking about the Midway here ! Slant deck conversion and all .

I was on an AE that skirted a typhoon southeast of Taiwan once, and the ship's gyrations were something to behold.  Massive side to side rolls from time to time, and the ship's screw would come out of the water every 30 seconds or so.  Just about the longest 48 hours of my life.  Makes you appreciate the forces of nature!

Good clip, it's form a fil called "Oceans".  Funny, I never felt sea sick when it was rough like this, usually when it was in-between.. and the ship rolling.. 

Here they are. USS ESSEX CVS-9, Winter of 1961 in the North Atlantic. We took 18 degree rolls. Thats something on a carrier. Put us in Brooklyn Naval yard for about 6 months. The pics are digital pics of pictures in my 1961 ESSEX Cruise Book.

EJ

That's the kind of thing that'll separate the men from the boys. Dang!