Rogue Waves

[Seascritch]

Any body know where that cruise ship was went it got popped by the 70 foot rogue wave? I guess it was caused by the tropical system sitting off the coast all weekend. And while on the subject, anybody have any good stories about big waves or freak out of the blue weather that caught you by surprise? Fortunately, out of all the times I've been offshore, I've never seen anything over say 25% bigger than all the rest of the swells. However, right out of high school, in West Point, rock fishing on the Paumunkey river, me and a couple buddies were caught by a freak wind/T-storm that almost immediately swamped us. Waves were slapping the bridge there that we had moments before been trolling under. SCARY!!! We hung onto the boat for about an hour, (no small task) in those 6'-8' footers and got swept way down the York before a rescue crew got out and located us. Our parents thought we were gonners. One Lifevest on board. We were all good swimmers and VERY lucky! Who else has got any hair raising stories? Rogue waves or otherwise?

[blueschaser2]

We have one rogue wave story--nothing like the 70 ftr one (BTW I'd like to know where that was, too) off of OC about 7-8 years ago. We were on a charter and the capt decided to cut short of the shoals off of Assateque. Out of nowhere came a good 20-25 ft wave -- I saw it coming, the boys (our teenage kids) were up on the flying bridge, their dad and I were on deck in the fighting chairs enjoying the ride out. I saw the wave coming and hunkered down, yelled out to hold on, held on to the chair arms for dear life, my buddy (god knows what he was thinking, got out of his chair to run (!!??) and got pounded, almost got washed overboard). This was going out so you can imagine what a fun day we had, I was soaked, my buddy was a mess of cut and bruises & the boys were in their glory laughing. Needless to say, now when we go offshore on our own boat we never cut in front of those shoals going out --it's not worth it.

[jgray]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7533945/

I read this earlier today. Sounded pretty crazy.

[dusky-jeff]

I had a summer squall sneak up on my while anchored up on the blue side of Ship Island in the gulf. Our electrical system picked the perfect time to short out so we had no power. The DF was reading between 0' and 7' while we banged the ****** out of the props and struts. When the Park Service guy brought a couple of starting batteries down the beach for us I had to carry them one at a time through the surf. When a wave would come in I would be standing fast about 5-6' underwater. Then I'd be knee deep again for a few seconds. When I reached the boat I waited until the boat bottomed out and then handed over the battery which immediately shot 7' straight up over my head. It was kind of scary. My ex-wife freaked and called a Mayday. It was an absolute fiasco. To keep it short, the hook never pulled, we got the engines started and we took a serious verbal and very public beating (deserved) from the CG guys that boarded us with MP5s and bulletproof vests. We had to convince them that we were NOT drugrunners. That might be why we divorced. Oh, well. F 'er!!!

[stevesea]

one time i was night fishing for tuna out at the poormans.

we heard a strom was due the next day. we figured we could fish the night, leave in the am ahead of the storm.

well at about 12am i felt this cold surge of wind, i said o sh!t, the fronts 18 hrs early,
winds got up to at least 40 knots, waves went from 2-3 to 7 to 9 in about an hour, decided to head in(glacier bay 26).

well a mile into my journey my compass light burnt out, and had to nav by gps only, a seven hour journey with a beam sea and waves breaking over the gunnel. the boat kept going left and right cuz the waves were throwing us aroung, i had to constantly adjust for the delay in the gps reading.

man i was NEVER SO SCARD IN MY LIFE.

i swear i will never go on and overnighter agian,

o it was only me and a buddy on the boat, i had to muster up all the manlyness i could get, cuz i was just sure we wern't gonna make it,

never felt so HAPPY to be alive. i was white nuckled all the way in, did i tell ya how scared i was.