Freak Waves

**nomos** · 12-01-2005, 02:37 PM

Originally Posted by ana_the_great

December 13,2004: I just had great sex with Gord.

Originally Posted by ana_the_great

December 10,2004: Have to take the kiddo to the dentist in about ten minutes. Little does he know how ruthless dentist's really are.

**Helen** · 13-04-2005, 04:40 AM

'Taken by Phillipe Lijour, the first mate of the super-tanker Esso Languedoc, during a storm off Durban, South Africa in 1980, the photo records a wall of water the size of an eight-storey building crashing over the deck of the ship. (For reference, the mast seen at the back of the photo stands 25 meters above mean sea level). While it was long understood that extraordinarily severe weather conditions or certain geological phenomena like undersea earthquakes could produce waves of enormous size, neither of these conditions were present when the wave that hit the Esso Languedoc occurred. In fact, the mean wave height at the time was only 5 to 10 meters. According to the longstanding method of ocean wave forecasting known as the Linear Model, the emergence of such a monster wave from this type of overall sea state could be expected to occur only once every 10,000 years.'
(-Jeffrey Kastner, from Cabinet Magazine, Issue 16, 'The Sea'.

**rewch** · 16-05-2005, 01:53 PM

just had to do a delivery trip from chichester to the clyde estuary & was waylaid by a nasty irish sea/st. george's channel storm to the west of anglesea of force 8 gusting 9... didn't have to deal with any waves quite like that but had several of 30-40 feet with nasty breakers on top... at holy island (entrance to port of holy head at north end of anglesea) with wind against tide saw some even bigger monsters... eek! didn't tell the rest of the crew but about half way through the 14 hour gale i remembered the words of a scottish fisherman & sailor who was vastly experienced to the effect that 'the only time i have been scared sailing was in mountainous seas off anglesea'... the rest of the crew thanked me later for keeping that bit of info to myself... every inch of every coast of anglesea is littered with wrecks

**craner** · 20-02-2007, 07:12 PM

I just revisited this. It still shocks me!

**craner** · 20-02-2007, 07:13 PM

I LOVE that picture of the ship above, by the way.

**turtles** · 20-02-2007, 08:26 PM

sweet, hadn't seen this thread. surfing kicks ass.

Yeah, "riding giants" was great for the big waves, absolutely insane stuff. But i find all the pseudo-spiritual uplifting bullshit really hard to take. same with "endless summer" (the surf movie, not the beach boys album, of course!). Which is kinda weird cuz I agree with what's been said above about surf culture, essentially just jocks on waves (same with snowboard culture...jocks on hills), so I'm not really sure where the new-wave hippie crap comes from...

That said, i LOVE surfing, even though I'm pretty terrible at it. I try and make it out to tofino, on the west coast of vancouver island at least a couple times a summer. camping + surfing is definitely the life. and speaking of surf culture, how much better was surf culture in the 50's?? I'm telling you, nothing gets you pumped up for surfing more than blaring the beach boys as loud as possible as you're driving to the beach. I long for the days where it was all about riding the nose and beach parties with jane fonda

Oh yeah, and to counter sufi's posted tofino blog, you should check out the blog by Ralf (or as my friends say "RRRRRRRRALF"), the Slayer-loving owner of tofino's only surf board & record store, a dirty old hippie of the trully great variety. I just found this and i'm now totally happy thinking about surfing again...

**craner** · 20-02-2007, 09:50 PM

Yes, I agree, the Spiritual Surfer schtick is painful. There are two great contra examples though.

1. Knoll in Riding Giants. He's, what, in his 50s. He compares Waimea to a past lover (he was her best, of course). And says something like, "I went out there a couple of years ago, for old times sake. There were a lot of hot young guys riding her, doing stuff I could never have done. But, you know, I got the feeling she recognised me. And she winked at me. She remembered." Wasn't that lovely? No "spiritual" shit there!

2. As "spiritualism" always going to its sinsiter side, which is inevitable (in my opinion): Surf Nazi Brody in Point Break with his disciples. "...and your balls are THIS big, man..."

The great ridiculous Spiritual Surfer scenes occur in the lamest Surfing film ever: North Shore. Who's seen that?

I have to say, though, that I do LOVE Big Wednesday. Particuarly because of Gary Busey, Patti D'arbanville, and Waxer at Bear's wedding. Beautiful stuff.

**craner** · 20-02-2007, 09:54 PM

Also, without wishing to emphasise the point, I'd seen Laird's Teahapoo wave in pictures well before watching Riding Giants. But to see it in motion, on screen, wide screen...well, you can understand why the man who pioneered Jaws like eating breakfast almost had a nervous breakdown after surviving that one. As I said, it was shocking. No mere bungee jump.