Biggest seas you have been in?

[Triton II]

Re: Biggest seas you have been in?

Don't feel "inferior," just because they were "small" lake waves. Lakes are typically very shallow and can get very nasty, very quickly. Its all relative to he boat that you are in and rapidly changing conditions on a lake can be extremely dangerous.

This is so true. I now boat on Moreton Bay which is about 50 miles long and 20 miles across and is very shallow, averaging around 7ft. This is after years of boating in Botany Bay just south of Sydney which on average is about three times as deep as Moreton and not nearly as large in surface area (about 5 x 5 miles). Here on Moreton the waves, even the small ones, are incredibly steep with duration between peaks getting down to five seconds. When the north-easterlies blow, there's plenty of sea room for the wind to pick up the waves down the length of the bay and they start to break when they get to about 4 or 5 feet. I've learned to pick my days and probably because it's still quite new to me, I'm MUCH more cautious up here than I was on Botany even though I've bought a bigger boat!

Anyway, back on topic, in the late 80s I crossed the English Channel from east to west in a car ferry during a big storm. Only a short crossing but the wind was from the north and so strong it was making the ferry list about 10 degrees to port while it smashed through big rolling waves, taking green water over the bow and making life interesting! They were probably only 15 or so feet but looked like mountains to me!

 

[1997mercury]

Re: Biggest seas you have been in?

39 foot seas on on my Honeymoon back in 2004 on a Eastern Carribean Holland America cruise. No kidding we were on the Lido deck I got the trip cheap because people were canceling from nonsense hearsay of hurricane scares that year (Yankees) and I spent 5k on a 12k trip. We woke up the second morning from huge water sprays hitting our sliding glass window...and those not familiar the lido deck it is the 7th deck up on a 1,000ft ship. It was bad everyone was getting sick....anyway I remember missing our first destination stop because it was so bad and the Captain said over the PA that he has never been in such bad weather in 38 years of sailing....hahaha after the storm past of course. We had to anchor behind Long Island for cover and he said it was only the second time in his career he ever had to do it as a result to bad seas. You couldn't see out of any windows because the salt white out the seas caused. The people on the bottom floor deck were freaking out because there portholes were completely underwater....All the water in the pools was nearly empty from thrashing about. I went to the top where the basketball courts were armed with my video camera. The courts had very high nets. The wind was so fierce I couldn't hear myself screaming at the top of my lungs. Anyway as a result of not stopping the first day they refunded the port fees that were not used and broken up between all of us on the ship we got like 12 dollars back...hahahah it was a joke. I loved the weather! The rest of the trip was awesome and would reccomend the cruise line to anyone.

 

[paultjohnson]

Re: Biggest seas you have been in?

60 footers on the ship in my avatar. When we got down in the trough, and standing on the fantail we had to look UP about 20-30 ft to see the top of the waves. On both sides at once. We were in the remnants of a hurricane. The ship would roll so far we were walking on the wall when walking down the passageways.

 

[dlindeblad]

Re: Biggest seas you have been in?

Not sure what the sea state levels were, but I was on a conventional aircraft carrier coming across the Atlantic in 2002. I'll just say we were taking waves over the bow and the spray shot all the way back to the island. Needless to say the planes were double chained for heavy weather and the decks were secure, even the smoking deck. We lost our Battle Group escorts for a time as they had to slow down to avoid the weather, and because they could take the waves as fast as we were still going.

Here is a video very similar what I was saying, except the weather looks nicer in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seYu2LV3Sok