Freak wave hit tanker

[ombugge]

Jann Inge Bakkeid !https://www.facebook.com/groups/865224253658886/

The year was 1980. Off Durban, South Africa, the huge supertanker Esso Languedoc was pounding through the ocean. The weather was choppy, but far from dangerous – the sea was five to ten meters high, as it often is when storms play out in the southern oceans. First mate Philippe Lijour went aboard with his camera, perhaps mostly to immortalize an ordinary day at sea.

But then it happened:
The sea was silent for a moment, before a dark shadow rose on the horizon. Like a wall, a mountain ofwater, the wave grew right in front of them. It grew higher and higher – until it towered like an eight-story building above the sea surface. The ship’s stern mast, a full 25 meters above the waterline, seemed like a toothpick in the face of this giant.

The men on board stood speechless. No shouting, no laughter, just a sigh in the stomach as the forces of nature showed their true face. Lijour raised the camera, pressed the shutter – and captured the moment that would prove that the sailors’ stories about the “giant wave” were not exaggerations, but bloody seriousness.

Because until then, both scientists and shipbuilders had been certain: the largest waves could barely exceed fifteen meters. And if such monsters were to exist, then ten thousand years would have to pass between each time. But the picture told a different truth. Later, satellite measurements would confirm it – these rogue waves, giant waves, lurk out there far more often than anyone had dared to believe.

[AKBJR]

The old American Planning Guides, which were bound in yellow soft-cover, noted that coast as prone to freak waves. They were a far cry from todays Planning Guides, and I found them pretty useful in planning a voyage when I was tramping back then.