CRISISBOOM

The Norwegian tanker Wilstar after being struck by a large wave in 1974. (Contributed photo)

The German container ship MS München left Bremerhaven, Germany, on a cold day in late 1978 headed for Savannah, Ga. On Dec. 12, the ship, two and a half football fields long and described as unsinkable, vanished after one unintelligible distress call.

All that was found in a wide search of the general area was some scattered debris and an unlaunched lifeboat that was originally secured on the deck 65 feet above the water line. Its attachment pins had been “twisted as though hit by an extreme force.” The best guess at the time was that the ship had been struck by a very large wave.

While seaman for many years have described huge waves or walls of water at sea, they weren’t usually given much credence until recently. Encounters with such large waves have become more frequent over the past 15 years or so, however, indicating that perhaps these weren’t all just sailor’s exaggerations or nightmares.

In February 1995, the Queen Elizabeth II encountered what was described as a 95-foot wall of water in the North Atlantic. The ship’s captain said it “came out of the darkness” and “looked like the White Cliffs of Dover.” He was able to determine the wave’s height because the crest was level with the ship’s bridge. The wave broke over the bow with explosive force and smashed many of the windows and part of its forward deck. That same year, an oil platform in the North Sea with a wave gauge measured a single rogue Read more…