Posted on 04/17/2005 4:50:14 AM PDT by Rebelbase
A "freak wave" more than 70 feet high slammed a luxury cruise ship steaming for New York yesterday, flooding cabins, injuring passengers and forcing the liner to stop for emergency repairs.
The Norwegian Dawn, an opulent ocean liner almost 1,000 feet long, limped into Charleston, S.C., yesterday afternoon after it hit vicious seas in an overnight storm off Florida - then was creamed by the rogue wave after dawn.
"[My room] was destroyed by stuff getting thrown all over the place," passenger James Fraley, of Keansburg, N.J., told NBC News before embarking on the 12-hour drive home because he didn't want to set foot on the ship again.
"It was pure chaos."
The ship, which sailed from New York last Sunday with 2,500 passengers, had been due back today.
It weathered most of a wild storm that featured gale-force winds and choppy seas. But then the vessel, longer than three football fields, was suddenly smacked by the "freak wave," said Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Susan Robison. It broke a pair of windows and flooded 62 cabins, she said.
"The sea had actually calmed down when the wave seemed to come out of thin air at daybreak," Robison said. "Our captain, who has 20 years on the job, said he never saw anything like it."
The tidal wave wrecked windows on the ninth and 10th floors and wreaked havoc below decks, destroying furniture, the onboard theater, and a store that sold expensive gifts.
It also injured four passengers and terrified scores more, many of whom lost belongings and were being flown back to New York early this morning.
"My daughter said people were freaking out," said Mel Blanck, 74, whose daughter, Caren Hogan, 42, of Matawan, N.J., was vacationing aboard with her family. "She said some doors were ripped off and broken glass was everywhere."
In a message Hogan left on her parents' voice mail, she said her ship "feels like the Titanic" and described "water running everywhere, with people getting hurt and panicking."
"She felt lucky that she and her children weren't hurt," said Blanck, whose daughter had called from South Carolina last night. "She's calm now, but she said it was a nightmare."
The floating city of a ship, which was commissioned in 2002, left New York a week ago for Orlando, Miami and the Bahamas. It had started heading home when it ran into the wicked weather.
During the storm, one frightened passenger called a relative who relayed the information to the Coast Guard, which escorted the ship into Charleston yesterday.
"The ocean is unforgiving; it doesn't care who is out there," said Petty Officer Bobby Nash of the Coast Guard in Florida. "This could have happened to anyone."
Repairs were done last night, and the ship resumed it's voyage around midnight after a team of Coast Guard inspectors gave it approval.
Many of the Norwegian Dawn's passengers remained on the ship while it was readied for the sea again, Robison said. The battered vessel is expected to return to New York tomorrow.
All passengers would be given a partial refund, a credit for a future trip and access to the ship's open bar, Robison said.
Amazing that only four were injured.
"after it hit vicious seas in an overnight storm off Florida - then was creamed by the rogue wave after dawn."
Bermuda Triangle?
There's been a low pressure S.E. of Hatteras for a couple of days now. Things should be calming down on the US coastlines by today/tomorrow.
There were reports of 17' surf at Hatteras Saturday morning.
Last year, Norwich virus.
This year, Mel Blank gets creamed by a rogue wave.
I belee...I belee...I belee...That's All Folks!
The USS Pickaway LPA 222 was hit with a rogue wave like this back in the late 60's in the south China Sea--Darn I am an old man!
You betcha. Those space aliens (not to be confused by the wetback marauders) are at it again. ;)
Partial refund???, Future trip?? not the near furure I would bet. The ship's open bar? Priceless,and very crowded.
There's nothing remotely weird about high seas off Cape Hatteras.
So where did the 70 foot wave go? Did it hit shore somewhere?
my initial thoughts were to the effect that perhaps that infamous Michael Moore was on board and he farted - therefore the huge wave was generated as a result.
The low pressure caused all that.
Well, what with that Tsunami and the oceans acting up. All those shark off the shores in Florida. Just strange to me.
And I will never look at the ocean the same again after looking at photos of the damage caused by that Tsunami. I never in my life heard of the ocean doing this before. I have 'heard' of them, but now with news coverage and the Internet, we can see the actual damage that they do.
And not living by Cape Hatteras, I am not familiar with the ocean conditions in that area. So thanks for pointing that out.
The weird thing about Tsunamis is that there weren't any large long-range tsunamis for 40 years from 1964 to 2004; normally there should have been one every 10 years.
Rogue storm waves only last for a few seconds; they're caused by several normal storm waves that happen to get "in synch" for a brief period of time.
I have no idea! Where does it go? Just keep rolling on until it hits a shore somewhere? Maybe someone can answer that. Maybe it calms down on it's own. I truly don't know where a wave of that magnitude ends up.
Quite a proud ship to have survived a 70-foot wave. I bet its architect must feel ten feet tall today!
Thank you Rebel. Like the one poster ask......where on earth does a wave like that end up? Does it just fizzle out or what?
Good Lord I can smell him.............
I couldn't believe the devastation. I can still see the photos in my mind's eye. Just sickening. And frightening.
Didn't this happen to the QE2 about a year ago, and didn't they see it coming? Caught it on RADAR as I recall. Wonder why this one sneaked up on them?
A partial refund for a freak sea--wow, what an age we live in. Someone must ALWAYS pay.
Other contributing factor can be a strong current; Gulf Stream fits the bill, particularly if winds are against the current.
The most rogue waves in the world are between Madagascar and South Africa in the Agulhas current, which is even faster than the Gulf Stream.
I get seasick on the local riverboats in Pittsburgh! I give my mother credit for enduring 3 transatlantic boat trips in the 1950's&60's. A few months ago, a large cruise ship was disabled near Hawaii. There were a bunch of Pitt students on it attending "Semester at Sea". I think think were quite a few injuries on that ship.
Can these things be seen on radar? Not in time to turn the ship probably, but in time to tell folks to brace?
Nope. They may only last 10 seconds or so.
A long history of killer crests
Rogue waves like the one that slammed into the Norwegian Dawn yesterday are more common and more dangerous than scientists first thought.
The waves, which can reach 15 to 80 feet high, have been responsible for the loss of more than 200 ships - including giant tankers and container vessels - in the past 20 years.
They also have caused damage to countless others, contradicting the long-held belief that only rare meteorological events could create the moving mountains of water. In fact, radar-based images last summer revealed 10 such waves in just a three-week period in the Atlantic Ocean.
In January, one such renegade wave smashed into the research vessel Explorer carrying nearly 1,000 people, including hundreds of students on a semester at sea program about 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage in the Pacific Ocean.
The mammoth wave reared up in a voyage already wracked by storms, shattering windows on the 600-foot ship's bridge and shutting down three of its four engines.
Crews were forced to herd passengers into the center of the ship, which eventually limped into Hawai.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/300795p-257522c.html
It probably dissipated shortly after doing its thing on the cruise ship. A "freak" wave is called that because it's the product of two or more wave-generating sources -- two storms, for example -- that send out waves and they pile up on one another. This may have been a storm that sent out a forty-foot wave that encountered a thirty-foot wave from another storm that piled up on it and they traveled together for a while. Result: a 70-foot wave. But only temporary.
In 1965, my cruise ship to Vietnam, the USNS Gordon, was laid into by one of those at night while we were watching a movie on deck (Lawrence of Arabia); it was terrifying. I thought we were going to capsize.
Basically with these things there's enough time for a lookout to say "Oh Shi..." before it hits.
Glad I'm a landlubber :)
Thanks for the info. I was thinking of a standard wave. I forgot about resonant waves.
There actually are some pictures of a few of these on the net (and some of the damage wrought); if I didn't have to leave for a fencing tournament right now I'd post some.
They're out there if you search on rogue waves though; One off South Carolina I remember. Some from South Africa.
That's assuming they pay someone to do lookout. Many captains no longer post lookouts 24x7 the way they should. Ask any ocean-going sailor in a small boat and they will tell you about large ships and supertankers getting too close for comfort and no one on deck seeing their boat.
Lookouts aren't mandated by regulations?
Taken aboard the SS Spray (ex-Gulf Spray) in about February of 1986 (best recollection), in the Gulf Stream, off of Charleston. Circumstances: A substantial gale was moving across Long Island, sending a very long swell down our way, meeting the Gulf Stream. We saw several rogue waves during the late morning on the horizon, but thought they were whales jumping. It was actually a nice day with light breezes and no significant sea. Only the very long swell, of about 15 feet high and probably 600 to 1000 feet long. This one hit us at the change of the watch at about noon. The photographer was an engineer (name forgotten), and this was the last photo on his roll of film. We were on the wing of the bridge, with a height of eye of 56 feet, and this wave broke over our heads. This shot was taken as we were diving down off the face of the second of a set of three waves, so the ship just kept falling into the trough, which just kept opening up under us. It bent the foremast (shown) back about 20 degrees, tore the foreword firefighting station (also shown) off the deck (rails, monitor, platform and all) and threw it against the face of the house. It also bent all the catwalks back severely. Later that night, about 1930, another wave hit the after house, hitting the stack and sending solid water down into the engine room through the forced draft blower intakes.
That picture puts a knot in my gut every time I see it. I can't imagine the terror of looking at a wave that size.
This can't be true. EnviroWhackos say the ocean is our friend. It would never hurt us, but we can hurt it. ;)
I wish someone had gotten a pic of that wave!
Thanks for the link. Lots of good information there.
It's a matter of historical perspective. If tsunami like that happen every 100 years, it is within nobody's living memory, and the Indian Ocean tsunami might have been an every 500 year event.
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