This list of rogue waves compiles incidents of known and likely rogue waves – also known as freak waves, monster waves, killer waves, and extreme waves. These are dangerous and rare ocean surface waves that unexpectedly reach at least twice the height of the tallest waves around them, and are often described by witnesses as "walls of water". They occur in deep water, usually far out at sea, and are a threat even to capital ships, ocean liners and land structures such as lighthouses.
Background Anecdotal evidence from mariners' testimonies and incidents of wave damage to ships has long suggested the existence of rogue waves; however, their scientific measurement was positively confirmed only following measurements of the Draupner wave, a rogue wave at the Draupner platform, in the North Sea on 1 January 1995. In this event, minor damage was inflicted on the platform, confirming that the reading was valid.
In modern oceanography, rogue waves are defined not as the biggest possible waves at sea, but instead as extreme sized waves for a given sea state.https://manoa.hawaii.edu/exploringourfluidearth/physical/waves/sea-states/weird-science-rogue-waves Extremely large waves offer an explanation for the otherwise inexplicable disappearance of many ocean-going vessels. However, the claim is contradicted by information held by Lloyd's Register.The story that "200 large ships lost to freak waves in the past two decades" was published in The Times (May 2006). One of the first press releases, issued by the European Space Agency (cited at the page bottom), reported "200 large ships of 600 ft long or more in the past two decades sunk without a trace". At the time the claim was made, there were 142 modern ships of that size lost at sea, all with clear, known causes (source: Lloyd's Register – Fairplay ). The main culprits were the Iranian and Iraqi air forces in the 1980s (See: Iran–Iraq War). One of the very few cases where evidence suggests a freak wave incident is the 1978 loss of the freighter . This claim, however, is contradicted by other sources, which maintain that, over a time period from 1969 to 1994 alone, rogue waves were responsible for the complete loss of 22 supertankers, often with their entire crew. In 2007, researcher Paul C. Liu of NOAA compiled a list of more than 50 incidents likely associated with rogue waves. Some have suggested that, using commercially available data, a large ship completely disappears without a trace once every two years. The cause is never determined.
Known or suspected rogue wave incidents
In addition to the incidents listed below, it has also been suggested that these types of waves may be responsible for the loss of several low-flying United States Coast Guard helicopters on search and rescue missions. , U.S. Naval Institute, 15 December 2006
Before 1950
On 4 August 1498, during the third voyage of Christopher Columbus, Columbus's ships were in the Gulf of Paria off the southern tip of Trinidad when Columbus heard a tremendous roar from behind his flagship. He observed a wave approaching from astern that was as tall as his ships' masts. Columbus described the wave as lifting his ships higher than anything he ever had experienced before, after which the ships dropped into a huge trough. On 28 September 1853 a huge wave struck the emigrant ship Annie Jane while she was off Barra in the Outer Hebrides. The wave caused the poop deck to collapse, instantly crushing 200 people to death. Annie Jane soon sank, and her 102 survivors were washed ashore on a piece of her deck. On 11 March 1861 at midday the lighthouse on Eagle Island off the west coast of Ireland was struck by a large wave that smashed 23 panes, washing some of the lamps down the stairs, and broken glass damaged the reflectors beyond repair. In order to damage the uppermost portion of the lighthouse, water had to surmount a seaside cliff measuring in height and a further of lighthouse structure. On 13 November 1865, the wooden cutter Aenid was in the Tasman Sea near Long Reef off New South Wales, Australia, when her helmsman sighted three huge waves approaching from her starboard quarter. Before he could turn the cutter to face them, they swamped Aenid and wrecked her with the loss of two lives. Four others on board survived. The wreck later was found washed up on Long Reef with part of its side smashed in."Wreck of the cutter yacht Aenid and supposed loss of life", The Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November 1865. On 10 October 1881, two massive waves struck the fishing vessel Alice of Boddam in the mouth of the Firth of Forth less than from Dunbar Harbour while she was attempting to reach Dunbar during a severe storm, sinking her with the loss of all seven members of her crew. On 14 February 1883 an enormous wave hit the steamship Glamorgan in the North Atlantic Ocean, sweeping her captain and seven crewmen overboard. The passenger ship rescued 44 survivors from Glamorgan on 16 February before she sank. On 3 April 1884, an immense wave wrecked the steamer Daniel Steinmann as she ran aground off Sambro, Nova Scotia, Canada. The wave swept many people overboard and sank the ship, killing all 90 of her passengers and 34 members of her crew. On 5 July 1884, a rogue wave struck the yacht Mignonette while she was in the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa about northwest of the Cape of Good Hope, washing away her lee bulwark. She sank five minutes later. On 15 December 1900, three lighthouse keepers mysteriously disappeared from the Flannan Isles Lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland during a storm. Although there were no surviving witnesses, a rogue wave that hit the west side of the island has been hypothesized to be responsible. On 10 October 1903, the British passenger liner was only four hours out of New York City when, at 2:30 p.m., a freak wave struck her. The wave was reported to be at least high and struck the ship on the port side. The wave carried away part of the forebridge and smashed the guardrail stanchions. There were a number of first-class passengers sitting in deck chairs close to the bridge and they caught the full force of the water. One passenger was fatally injured and several other passengers were hurt. On 28 August 1905, the steamship Peconic was making a turn to port during a strong gale when a huge wave approaching from the northeast struck her just after midnight. The impact caused her cargo of 1,500 tons of coal to shift, and she heeled over and sank almost immediately, killing 20 of her crew of 22. The Blue Anchor Line luxury steamer SS Waratah, an Australian ship of 16,000 gross register tons, disappeared without trace south of Durban, South Africa, in July 1909 with 211 passengers and crew aboard. No survivors or wreckage were found. The most plausible theory for her disappearance is that she encountered a rogue wave which either caused her to capsize or flooded her cargo holds, sinking her almost instantly. On 10 January 1910, a wave struck the liner during a storm in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland, smashing the windows in her bridge and pilot house above the waterline, pushing her bridge back , and permanently depressing her bridge and forecastle deck by several inches. Water reached the top of her wheelhouse, above her deck.The encounter of RMS Lusitania, Freaque Waves, 17 December 2009 Accessed 10 November 2021 On 6 February 1914 at 3 p.m., a rogue wave (known at the time as a "cumulative wave") struck the starboard bow of the liner in the Atlantic Ocean west of Ireland, breaking in two the steel fore-and-aft bridge connecting the spar deck with the forecastle. The wave shattered three deckhouse windows and a stateroom porthole protected by heavy steel shutters; fragments of the porthole passed through the stateroom with great force, inflicting a head injury on a passenger, and one fragment embedded itself in a heavy oak casement. The wave also created a wall of water that washed aft down the promenade deck, nearly sweeping overboard a group of nine passengers on deck chairs, two of whom had to swim across the deck to reach the safety of the saloon companionway, and leaving one man wedged between two ventilators. On 7 February 1914, a rogue wave struck the liner in the mid-Atlantic Ocean, shattering eight portholes, swamping the dining saloon during lunch, and injuring the ship's purser and several passengers. On 31 December 1914 at 4:40 p.m., United States Lighthouse Service Captain Fred Harrington, lighthouse keeper at Trinidad Head Light on Trinidad Head in Trinidad, California, saw a wave offshore approaching the bluff on which the lighthouse stood which washed completely over Pilot Rock offshore, appeared to him to rise to the level of the lighthouse's lantern above sea level, and then broke over the top of the bluff on which the lighthouse stood. It was the largest recorded ocean wave ever to strike the United States West Coast, and Harrington's report that that wave crested at the height of the lantern and that it buried the area between the lighthouse and the bluff in water which rose to the lighthouse's balcony suggests a possible wave height of ."The Giant 200-Foot Wave at Trinidad, California", 'Dr Abalone', 31 December 2014 The wave's impact shook the lighthouse and extinguished the light, although Harrington restored service in four hours. On 7 November 1915 at 2:27 a.m., the British battleship suffered severe damage during a storm in the Pentland Firth when two large waves struck her in rapid succession. Water rose as high as the bottom of her lower foretop, filling it with water, sweeping her forward deck clear, smashing her forebridge – much of which was found in pieces on her upper deck – wrecking her chart house, shifting the roof of her conning tower, and flooding her forward main gun turret, mess decks, and flats. Five of her crew died, and 17 others suffered serious injuries. At midnight on 5–6 May 1916 the British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton was at the tiller of the small sailboat James Caird in the Southern Ocean during a storm when he thought he saw the bad weather clearing in the west, astern. He then realized that what he thought was a line of white clouds above a clear dark sky was actually the crest of a single enormous wave that struck and nearly swamped the boat. Shackleton reported that the wave was larger than any he had ever seen before in his 26 years of seafaring.Carol Fowl. Unplanned epics – Bligh's and Shackleton's small-boat voyages , website of the National Maritime Museum, first published in the magazine Sailing Today, Issue 75, July 2003. On 29 August 1916 at about 4:40 p.m., the United States Navy armored cruiser USS Memphis was wrecked in Santo Domingo harbor in the Dominican Republic when struck in rapid succession by three waves of up to in height, killing 40 men and injuring 204. The waves also damaged and nearly capsized the U.S. Navy gunboat , which also was in the harbor. Once described as a tsunami, the waves have more recently been assessed as exceptionally large, freak wind-driven waves generated by passing hurricanes.Smith, Craig B. Extreme Waves. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2006. , pp. 68–69heinonline.org 4 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 520 (1935–1936) Annotations of Opinions of the Attorney General of the United States In August 1924, the British ocean liner arrived in New York City late after steaming through a hurricane off the United States East Coast in which an rogue wave struck her, injuring seven people, smashing numerous windows and portholes, carrying away one of her lifeboats, and snapping chairs and other fittings from their fastenings. In February 1926 in the North Atlantic a massive wave hit the British passenger liner , smashing four of the bridge's nine glass windows and doing some other damage.