Rogue Waves-WCC STEM Scholars Newsletter November 2023

The ocean has long been a source of both fascination and fear for mariners throughout history. Amongst the tales of ghost ships and sea monsters, sailors have shared incredible stories of a destructive force of nature that strikes without warning. It cannot be predicted, prevented, or outrun. Ocean waves stand as some of the most powerful forces on our planet. Many people are familiar with the deadly power of tsunamis, generated by underwater earthquakes, volcanoes, or landslides, as well as the devastating storm surges resulting from the winds and low-pressure systems of hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones.

These phenomena are well-documented. However, farther out to sea, there is another type of wave even more monstrous than tsunamis and storm surges. They emerge seemingly out of nowhere and vanish without a trace. They are known as rogue waves, large enough to capsize and sink even the sturdiest vessels. Our knowledge of these waves comes from word-of-mouth accounts and bits of wreckage left in their wake of destruction. In this article, we are embarking on the high seas to explore the mysterious world of rogue waves, delving into their origins, the science behind them, and the harrowing tales of the sailors who encountered them.

A rogue wave, in the simplest terms, is defined as a wave whose height is more than twice the average height of the waves surrounding it. For centuries, many sailors accounts of these monstrous waves were largely dismissed as tall tales. Part of the chilling reason is because, more often than not, when these waves did strike, no one survived to tell the tale. After many years of scientific progress, it was concluded that large waves of about a hundred feet in height were possible, but extremely rare, at most occurring only once every few decades. The mathematical models that traditionally have been used to describe and calculate the formation of waves simply didn't allow for strange occurrences, and certainly not with the frequency sailors reported them. As such, many people blamed the losses of such high-profile vessels on other aspects like design flaws or human error. The idea that a ship could simply be swallowed by the sea was inconceivable, even up to the end of the 20th century.

One of the most prominent of these unexplained disappearances was the MS München. The pride of the German Merchant Navy, the München was a state-of-the-art cargo ship that was actually designed to deal with heavy storms with waves measuring 30-50 feet high. But on December 12, 1978, the München was headed through the stormy waters of the North Atlantic to Savannah, GA from her home port in Bremerhaven, Germany when she ran into trouble. She managed to send out a mayday call and a few SOS signals, prompting a quick search and rescue operation, the biggest ever carried out in the North Atlantic. But despite weeks of searching, all that was found of the 853-foot ship and her crew of 28 were some life jackets, life rafts, a few containers, some buoys, and a lifeboat. However, this life boat provided damning evidence about what might have happened to the München. The steel pins that held the lifeboat were sharply bent, indicating that the vessel was hit with a massive force, almost certainly a wall of water. Two years later, on September 9, 1980, the MV Derbyshire went down during Typhoon Orchid, taking all 42 men along with two of their wives with her just south of Okinawa. The wreckage was found shredded and mangled, the result of an explosive decompression. An analysis indicated that rogue waves likely were responsible for the structural failure of the vessel which ultimately led to her sinking.

Being stationary platforms, it may come as no surprise that oil rigs have also had to endure the fury of rogue waves. On February 15, 1982, the Ocean Ranger was anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada when a storm began brewing. The oil platform was specifically designed to handle extreme weather conditions, including 40-foot waves. However, one of the waves that the storm generated was more than twice that height. The enormous wall of water smashed into the oil rig, flooding the control room and destroying the vital computer systems, the most critical of which were used to control the ballast tanks. Unable to be stabilized, the Ocean Ranger capsized, broke free from its pontoons, and sank. All 84 men on board were killed, making it one of, if not the, deadliest incidents involving a rogue wave. Thirteen years later, another incident involving rogue waves against oil rigs changed our understanding of them. On January 1, 1995, the Draupner platform, a Norwegian oil rig based in the North Sea, was hit by an enormous rogue wave at roughly 85 feet, much larger than the over 30-foot waves that surrounded it. Although it wasn’t serious, the rig suffered some minor damage to the underside and a laser rangefinder showed evidence that monster waves may occur more frequently than what had been assumed prior. The Draupner incident was the first time a rogue wave was ever measured with instruments and marked a pivotal moment leading to increased research efforts to understand how they are formed.

Scientists have come up with a variety of theories as to how rogue waves are created. Sometimes they can form when waves of various sizes combine together. The energy from the waves becomes focused into one larger one. However, rogue waves that form this way do not usually last long and disappear after a few minutes. Other times, waves travelling against a strong current can compress them, causing them to become bigger and taller. Many areas of the ocean known for strong currents are also known to be breeding grounds for rogue waves. Rogue waves can also form when normal waves meet shoals or islands. As the waves are forced to travel around it, they join up on the other side, stronger and more dangerous than ever before. Even though rogue waves usually occur during storms when conditions are the most turbulent and, therefore, more ideal, they can also, on rare occasions, occur in calmer waters. Unsurprisingly, rogue waves can be just as, if not more, dangerous in these conditions as they are more unexpected.

There are many hot spots around the world that are known for the formation of rogue waves. One such place is the Agulhas Current, off the southern coast of South Africa, where its strong, unpredictable currents and rocky underwater formations make it an ideal location for rogue waves, giving the Cape of Good Hope the nickname “The Cape of Storms”. Another, more high-profile area is the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic. Because of its heavy interaction with other currents and wind patterns, it can also lead to the development of rogue waves. Coincidentally, the Gulf Stream leads into one of the most notorious regions in the Atlantic Ocean: the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is well-known for being affiliated with the supernatural and unexplained, predominantly due to the mysterious disappearances of numerous ships and aircraft in the area. However, many oceanographers have concluded that these disappearances were not the result of space aliens, sea monsters, or other paranormal phenomena, but the rogue waves that have formed in the region.

Aside from any of the events mentioned previously, there have been countless other tales of harrowing encounters with rogue waves that have seized the imagination, making their way into the annals of maritime lore and the broader realm of popular culture. Perhaps one of the most dramatic illustrations of the power of rogue waves occurred in late October of 1991, when the remains of Hurricane Grace, which had caused minimal damage near Bermuda, combined with a cold front and a low-pressure system (known as a northeaster) to create another smaller, albeit still powerful, hurricane known as the Perfect Storm. One of the vessels that got caught in the perilous conditions was the Andrea Gail, a fishing boat out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her six-man crew soon found themselves caught in a maelstrom of waves towering as high as a hundred feet, unfortunately proving fatal for everyone onboard. The Andrea Gail’s story became immortalized in Sebastian Junger’s bestselling book The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea, which was adapted into the motion picture, The Perfect Storm, directed by Wolfgang Peterson and starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.

Ocean liners have also had many encounters with rogue waves. Five years before she was infamously torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in World War I, the RMS Lusitania almost was the victim of a rogue wave. On January 10, 1910, the Lusitania was traveling through a winter storm with thirty-foot swells when she found herself steaming into a seventy-foot wall of water right in front of her. Although no one was seriously hurt, there was tremendous damage to the bridge and forecastle. In 1937, the RMS Queen Mary was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean during a storm when the ship was hit by a series of waves, which caused her to roll violently, strong enough to knock plates, glasses, and silverware off the tables and making some of the people aboard nauseous. One of the passengers who was traveling aboard the Queen Mary at the time was a young man named Paul Gallico, who, about three decades later, used the incident as the inspiration for his most famous novel, The Poseidon Adventure. The book tells the story of a group of survivors who try to escape a liner after it is capsized by a monstrous wave. The book was later adapted into the 1972 motion picture of the same name, in which the titular Poseidon was based on and even partially filmed aboard the Queen Mary herself, although the wave that overturns the ship is a (scientifically inaccurate) tsunami caused by an underwater earthquake. The story was loosely retold in the 2006 motion picture Poseidon (now depicted as a modern cruise ship) directed by The Perfect Storm’s Wolfgang Peterson, which returns to the origins of the vessel being capsized by a rogue wave. In 1942, the Queen Mary, now serving as a troop transport during World War II was carrying more than 10,000 soldiers to Europe through yet another stormy sea. She was hit again by a rogue wave ninety feet high, punching through the portholes and bridge windows, and causing her to tilt over fifty degrees. Had she gone over any further, she undoubtedly would have capsized, likely resulting in the loss of everyone on board. It only goes to show that lightning can strike twice. In 1966, the Italian liner SS Michelangelo was traveling across the Atlantic from Genoa, Italy to New York City. She was ultra-modern with state-of-the-art stabilizers, but even that wasn’t enough to prevent the deaths of three people and dozens more from being injured when a rogue wave smashed her superstructure.

Rogue waves are not just restricted to being on the ocean. They also can be found in large inland lakes, such as the Great Lakes of North America. Ever since the first Europeans came to the continent from overseas, it is estimated that as many as 6,000 vessels have been lost on the Great Lakes, some of which may have been the result of rogue waves. Lake Superior, the largest one, is notorious for having rogue waves coming in trios, a phenomenon known as “The Three Sisters.” These waves follow one after the other in rapid succession, striking a vessel before she can shake off the effects of the wave that hit her before. In fact, it is widely believed that the Three Sisters were responsible for the largest and most famous vessel lost on the Great Lakes. On November 10, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter carrying iron ore for the steel industry, ran into a fierce gale on Lake Superior. The strong winds and heavy swells knocked out the radar and caused topside damage, causing her to take on water. A nearby ship, the SS Arthur M. Anderson, which remained in contact with the Fitzgerald, reported being hit by several gigantic waves and those waves were headed her way. Moments later, the Big Fitz, as she was affectionately known, vanished from the radar. Several months after, the Coast Guard discovered the freighter, ripped in half, lying on the bottom of Lake Superior. None of her 29-man crew had a chance to escape. It was this disastrous experience with rogue waves that inspired one of the most popular ballads written by the late Canadian folk singer, Gordon Lightfoot.

The lucky ones who have lived through the experience of surviving a rogue wave will never forget it and it always makes them wonder about the future of such incidents. Perhaps the most notable of these individuals is the renowned oceanographer, Dr. Robert Ballard, best known for being the discoverer of the RMS Titanic, as well as the German battleship Bismarck, PT-109, among other wrecks. During his first ocean expedition, the then 17-year-old Ballard was aboard the research vessel Orca when she got caught in a storm in the North Pacific Ocean. “A rogue wave over 50 feet high hit us, blowing out the windows of the bridge, blowing out the portholes in the galley, destroying the mast and splash rail, and flooding the engineer room with water,” Ballard stated. Two crew members were badly injured and the damage to the vessel was so severe that she had to be escorted back by a Coast Guard cutter. Dr. Ballard believes that it is very likely that rogue waves may get bigger and occur more frequently in the future as the planet warms up. “We've got a lot to learn about how it all works, but there is one common thread: the world's getting hotter and that’s putting more energy into the system. So, from there you just have to follow the trail and that leads you to more violent storms and bigger waves.” Ballard sees only two options to address the problem: either design stronger ships and build higher sea walls or stop adding more heat to the system.

Considering how vital ships are to the world economy, it makes sense that naval architects are constantly trying to modify their designs in order to withstand the power of large waves. Many ships can withstand 15 tons without damage, but rogue waves can strike with a force of more than five times that amount. Trying to meet these structural challenges poses some other major problems. Retrofitting vessels with thicker hulls, stronger bridges, and enhanced stabilizers, or even building new ones from scratch can cost millions, if not billions, of dollars. As such, some argue that the best solution should not be focused on how to prepare for the oncoming wave but how to avoid that wave altogether.

Wanting to prevent future disasters, scientists began monitoring the world’s oceans by satellite in the 1990s. With satellite technology, international research facilities can provide an image of any particular part of the ocean and map wave activity under any conditions. Despite its dangers, the ocean continues to entrance the mariners and adventurers who are drawn to its boundless horizons. As we continue to unravel the mysteries of these towering walls of water, the ocean's enigmatic allure persists, forever captivating those who seek to understand its tumultuous nature.

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