6. Extreme Wave/Ship Interaction

Catastrophic (extreme) ocean waves differ from tsunamis. Tsunamis become dangerous only when they come to the coastal zone. On the contrary, catastrophic ocean waves most often arise far from the coast. The Beagle met an extreme wave near Cape Horn. Darwin wrote … On the 13th the storm raged with its full fury; our horizon was narrowly limited by the sheets of spray borne by the wind … At noon a great sea broke over us, and filled one of the whale-boats, … The poor Beagle trembled at the shock, and for a few minutes would not obey her helm; but soon, like a good ship that she was, she righted and came up to the wind again. Had another sea followed the first, our fate would have been decided soon and for ever … (Darwin, Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Around the World, under the Command of Captain Fitz Roy, R N T Nelson and Sons, London, 1890, pp. 264–265).

This description indicates that the Beagle met a storm transforming into a hurricane. According to the standard scale of Sir Francis Beaufort, during a storm there are extremely high waves whose crests are blown off in foam. The maximum height of these waves is up to 16 m, an average height is 11.5, the wind is 28.5–32.6 m/s. During a hurricane the wind speed may be larger, the air is filled with foam and splashes, and the visibility is very bad. The situation is extremely dangerous for small vessels, such as the Beagle. Thus, according to the scale, the storm described by Darwin was a hurricane, for which the ocean around Cape Horn is famous. Huge waves reaching 16 m kept the crew under extreme pressure. However, during such an event which the crew had probably got used to, the vessel was shaken by a single huge wave. From Darwin’s description, it appears that this wave may be described as catastrophic. Only during recent years have these waves drawn the attention of the public and of scientists (Kurkin and Pelinovsky, Волны-убийцы: Факты, Теория и Моделирование (Freak waves: facts, theory and modelling). NNSTU, Nizhny Novgorod, 2004; Liu and MacHutchon, Are there different kinds of rogue waves? OMAE2006-92619, 2006; Liu et al. Exploring rogue waves from observations in South Indian Ocean. http://www.ifremer.fr/web-com/stw2008/rw/fullpapers/liu.pdf, 2006; Fochesato et al. Wave Motion 44(5):395–416, 2007; Dysthe et al. Annu Rev Fluid Mech 40:287–310, 2008; Olagnon and Prevosto, Rogue waves 2008. Ifremer http://www.ifremer.fr/web-com/stw2008/rw/, 2009; Kharif et al. Rogue waves in the ocean. Springer, Berlin, 2009; Denchfield et al. A deep-water beach laboratory generation of abnormal waves. In: Olagnon M, Prevosto M (eds) Rogue waves. Ifremer, 2009; Akhmediev et al. Phys Lett A 373:675–678, 2009; Akhmediev et al. Phys Lett A 373:2137–2145, 2009; Zakharov et al. Eur Phys J-Spec Top 185(1):113–124, 2010; Kibler et al. Nat Phys 6:790–795, 2010; Vennell, J Fluid Mech 650:427–442, 2010; Nikolkina and Didenkulova, Nat Hazards Earth Syst Sci 11:2913–2924, 2011; Latifah and van Groesen, Nonlinear Process Geophys 19:199–213, 2012; Chabchoub et al. Phys Rev X 2:011015, 2012; Galiev and Mace, Lagrangian description of extreme ocean waves. Известия Уфимского Научного Центра Российской Академии Наук (Herald of Ufa Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS)) 4:6–13, 2014). Indeed, over the last 20 years more than 200 super-carrier-cargo ships over 200 m long have been lost at sea. Eyewitness reports suggest that many were sunk by high and violent walls of water that rose up out of calm seas (Kurkin and Pelinovsky, Волны-убийцы: Факты, Теория и Моделирование (Freak waves: facts, theory and modelling). NNSTU, Nizhny Novgorod, 2004; Kharif et al. Rogue waves in the ocean. Springer, Berlin, 2009) (see also the Sect. 3.​3.​6).