5 TERRIFYING Rogue Wave Encounters

rogue waves for centuries they've captured the Public's imagination and terrified Sailors they have become the stuff of Legends but for a long time rogue waves couldn't even be proven to actually exist they sat firmly in the same category as Krakens and giant whirlpools as little more than seafarers Tales but then in the Modern Age ships began to encounter huge waves seemingly out of nowhere at Sea some of these encounters were even deadly and some actually sank ships here are some terrifying true encounters with real life rogue waves foreign [Music] the ocean liner Lusitania was battling its way through a very heavy sea in a storm see ocean liners aren't like cruise ships when bad weather comes up they can't just go around it like a city bus they have to maintain a regular schedule so if there's a storm they have to go right through it the Lusitania and its running mate the Mauritania were the two largest and most modern luxurious ships afloat at the time for passengers they must have seemed like floating cities almost 32 000 gross registered tons and 787 feet or 240 meters long regardless of how big the ships were though the ocean was mightier and in Heavy Seas they would roll and Pitch up and down in the big waves in 1910 the U.S Eastern Seaboard was experiencing a very nasty winter snap with the blizzard engulfing New York City and at sea things weren't much better Lusitania was battling its way through 50 knot winds and 30 foot or 9 meter swell at about 6 PM the ship's Captain Turner left the bridge to retire for the night but he had scarcely stepped away when something was spotted ahead it was a towering mountain of water a monster wave at the ship's Crews 22 meters above the ocean were looking at eye to eye but then as the wave was getting closer and the men on the bridge began to brace themselves the Lusitania pitched downward into a trough and the wave reared up well above the ship thank you with enormous Force it's smashed over the top of the bridge totally engulfing the massive ocean liner in White Water the bridge window smashed in immediately and the men inside held on for dear life as sea water roared in and swept them off their feet in fact the bridge was flooded up to five feet or 150 centimeters the waves smashed along lusitania's length until it was left behind and Incredibly the Lusitania continued on its way afterwards the men on the bridge picked themselves up the Helmsman who had been steering the ship had been flung backwards into a wall and found that he was still holding the ship's wheel in his hands it had just broken clean off its base then the men realized to their horror that a fellow officer had been standing on a compass platform way up above the bridge somehow he had held on and even though he was about eight or nine stories above the ocean his legs were swamped by the water to him it must have looked like the Lusitania was diving into the ocean only to never return but Lusitania did return the ship continued on its way after being thoroughly checked and arrived in New York a few days later the bridge Windows had been shattered and the whole Bridge front had been smashed backwards by about two inches or five centimeters not only that but four of the ship's lifeboats each securely tied down and weighing about a ton each had been ripped away amazingly there were no fatalities or injuries in this encounter but for a moment there it must have seemed like it was the end for lusitania's passengers and crew fast forward 85 years to 1995 and the Queen Elizabeth II was in a very similar situation headed for New York in about 200 nautical miles or 370 kilometers off Newfoundland the ship ran smack into hurricane Lewis 1995 marked an extraordinarily active Atlantic hurricane season and Lewis was a killer 19 lost their lives when it made landfall in about 20 000 were made homeless at Sea huge waves were being whipped up by the insane wind speeds of the category 4 storm and Queen Elizabeth II was caught right in the middle of it QE2 as it was affectionately known was considerably bigger than Lusitania over twice the size but it didn't account for much because in the face of 40-foot waves and 130 mile per hour or 209 kilometer per hour winds the ship pitched and rolled onboard shows were canceled blackjack tables and the casino were tipped over and then in the Grand salon almost seven stories above the normal water level windows were smashed in by Massive waves just after 4am on September the 11th qe2's Captain Ronald Warwick was on the bridge when out of the darkness ahead he spotted some White Cliffs at first he thought they even looked like the White Cliffs of Dover but then to his horror he and his officers realized they were staring eye to eye at a wave about 96 feet which is shy of 30 meters tall QE2 had its nose pointed straight at it you don't want to be caught from the side by a giant wave we'll see why later in this video but the crew held their breath as the wave raced directly at them Captain Warwick recalled that the waves seemed to take ages to arrive but it was probably less than a minute before it broke with tremendous force over the bow an incredible shutter went through the ship just like on the Lusitania the wave broke directly over the ship's nose a seething boiling wall of white water which smashed into the ship's bow decks with all of Nature's incredible destructive power QE2 broke through this first wave but then the 963 foot long ship dropped down like a roller coaster car directly into the path of a second wave which crashed along the ship's length it was this second wave which smashed into the qe2's bear with enough Force to rip heavy crew doors open Bend railings and wrenched away the big whistle mast amazingly because the captain had advised passengers to stay confined to their cabins in the face of the Heavy Seas and because it was so early in the morning nobody was hurt in the incident as most of the nearly 3 000 aboard were tucked away safely in bed for centuries Sailors who had encountered rogue waves like this weren't believed or it was thought that they were simply embellishing their stories but Warwick and his officers were Vindicated in their story because a nearby Canadian weather boy recorded an insane Spike when it rode up at over a 98 foot or nearly 30 meter wave that same night so far the rogue waves we've looked at cause no serious injury and weren't deadly and this one isn't either but it very nearly was and if things had played out just a little bit differently it would have easily resulted in the largest loss of life in Maritime history it was the Queen Mary owned by the same company as the Lusitania and QE2 the Cunard line which was one of the world's most beloved and largest passenger Ships coming in at around 81 000 gross registered tons and exceeding one thousand feet with 304 meters in length in normal peacetime service the queen could carry about 2 100 passengers and a thousand crew but in the depths of the second world war it was realized that thousands more troops could be squeezed into the ship Queen Mary then the fastest ship in the world was put into Service as a troop transport and the British government pushed it to its limits at first the queen carried about 6 000 troops but then as the war dragged on and more men were needed it was scaled up in a big way by 1942 the ship along with its sister the Queen Elizabeth was capable of carrying some 16 000 soldiers to Europe an incredible number that for a single vessel has never been topped before or since cramming sixteen thousand men the equivalent of an entire division into a single ship was a bold move by the British it was not an easily made decision but incredibly Faith was put into the Queen Mary speed to dodge and outrun enemy submarines and airplanes Adolf Hitler even put a bounty on the Queen Mary the equivalent of 250 000 and the coveted Iron Cross medal for whichever submarine captain could sink the ship bizarrely though it was nature that nearly achieved this directive and not Hitler's submarine fleets in early December 1942 the Queen Mary was loaded with over 16 000 American GIS and set out from New York to Scotland braving over 3000 miles of U-Boat infested and stormy Atlantic Ocean by the fourth day at Sea the conditions had worsened and the queen was now facing massive seas and high winds on top of carrying the 16 000 Plus Men the ship had been loaded with equipment and supplies which coupled with its low metacentric height a topic I covered in my ship design fails video caused the ship to roll slowly slowly over to one side and never seemed like it would return to level the troops inside the ship had to suffer and many had never been in such ocean conditions before seasickness was Rife and the inside of the ship became a nightmarish hell Awash with vomit and with many men presenting to the infirmary with serious dehydration regardless the Queen Mary plowed on cresting monstrous waves and smashing down stories at a time only to be met by the next one just 700 miles from her destination the ship crested a wave and dropped like she'd done a thousand times before but then seemingly out of nowhere off the ship's Port bow there appeared an enormous rogue wave at least twice the height of the biggest wave she'd yet encountered the bridge tried to turn the ship's nose towards it but it was too late and the Queen Mary was caught Plum on its broadside Windows across the ship and on the bridge shattered as water roared over it and lifeboats on the side facing the Wave were just ripped off their debits ship began to heal way over 10 degrees then 15 then 20 then 30 and then 40. by now everybody inside of standing would have had to have held on or at the very least have one foot on a bulkhead or wall then the list kept going 45 degrees and then an incredible horrifying 50 degrees of list inside the ship anything not bolted down raced across the interior and slammed against the starboard side men not holding on in their bunks were thrown down suffering concussions and broken bones portholes smashed in and seawater roared into cabins and staterooms starboard side of the ship slung low in the water so the lifeboats almost kissed the ocean surface then the ship stayed there healed hard over 50 degrees or so for what seemed like an eternity it stayed like that it could only have been seconds but for the 16 000 troops and a thousand crew on board it must have felt like forever nobody knew if the ship would roll to its Doom incredibly the ship began to slowly ride itself coming back level and putting everybody inside back onto their feet it's been estimated that if the ship had rolled just a few more degrees than it would have exceeded its center of gravity and completely rolled over capsizing in a Raging Sea that would have certainly resulted in the death of every single person on board instantly becoming the worst single Maritime disaster in modern human history thank you the wave the ocean liner Michelangelo encountered in 1966 was a deadly one killing three people and injuring dozens more SS Michelangelo was a liner built for the Italian line radical in its design the ship was of decent size at about 49 000 gross registered tons and just over 900 feet or 276 meters long the ship was used to maintain a regular passenger service to New York from Genoa Italy and just a year after its maiden voyage in 1965 the ship was making its way to New York when it was smashed by a rogue wave the ship was five days into its voyage and had run into a storm no problem though because the ship was well designed to handle these kinds of conditions waves 20 meters high or 66 feet crashed over the ship's bow and it pitched up and down but then at a critical moment when the nose of the ship began to drop downwards a huge wave appeared off its bow normally this wave would have been harmlessly cut into by the ship's knife edge bow but as the front of the ship dropped into a trough the old storm wave reared up higher and higher until it was well above the Michelangelo's bow at that second when the ship was at its most vulnerable the waves smashed down onto the front decks and plummeted into the forward superstructure tons and tons of water crashed home with terrifying violence when the water had cleared and the Michelangelo came back up again it became clear that something seriously bad had happened coming into the storm the captain had ordered passengers to stay in their cabins a smart move when the sea is so rough that unprepared people could be thrown around like ragdolls but this also meant that all the cabins in the path of the wave were occupied and when the spray had cleared away the damage was revealed the front of the ship's superstructure had simply collapsed the metal caved in and bent like cardboard by the weight of the water cabin t11 at the very front of that section of the ship simply ceased to exist two passengers and cabins at the front of the ship there were killed immediately as was a crew member across the ship there were 50 injured 10 of them Gravely from sprains to breaks and lacerations from Falls the ship rendezvoused with the U.S Coast Guard vessel whose Personnel scrambled aboard to help the overloaded ships doctors Michelangelo limped into New York Harbor and the damage was assessed at the time ship's superstructures were being made entirely of aluminum to save weight and reap a speed benefit but this meant the front of Michelangelo's superstructure could be easily caved in by enough water it was rebuilt with steel instead we end now on a ship whose loss remains a mystery to this day but whose disappearance can likely be explained by Rogue Wave activity the munchkin or Munich was a modern cargo ship built for haypack Lloyd it was designed to carry barges and effectively became a ship designed to ship other ships the Munich was built in 1972 and was a 37 000 gross registered ton ship about 857 or 261 meters long somewhere in the size range of the Lusitania in December 1978 the ship set off on a routine Voyage from bremerhaven in Germany for Savannah Georgia in the USA since the month prior a bad storm had been raging in the North Atlantic so the Munich's crew knew or thought they knew what they were heading toward the ship was Thoroughly Modern very safe and designed to handle the North Atlantic at its worst that kind of ship called an lash carrier is renowned for its flotation ability and was at the time considered to be practically Unsinkable now where have we heard that before Munich set off into the storm but it would never be seen again at just past midnight on December the 11th the ship's Wireless operator was chatting with a friend on another ship and reported bad weather and even some mild damage to the Munich despite this all seemed well and the ship continued on but then at 3am things changed when garbled SOS calls were picked up by ships in the area the conditions must have been playing Havoc with the radio because little could be discerned except the May Day call and the phrase 50 degrees starboard this chilling detail takes us back to the Queen Mary which also rolled over to 50 degrees but was able to ride itself Munich would not be so lucky the ship's distress call seemed to stop and a search was initiated but it was hampered by the bad weather through the next day chilling radio signals were detected one amateur radio operator overheard a voice in English but with a thick German accent the signal was weak and garbled but the operator heard Munich's name and call sign later that night 10 more weak May Day signals were received by a U.S station in Spain again garbled but referring to 28 persons aboard Munich had departed Germany with a crew of 28. that night Munich's call sign d-e-a-t was received by the same station in a Dutch tug next day the wind speeds had dropped somewhat and a larger search could be put underway four aircraft and 17 ships took part and then they started to find things on the ocean first an empty life raft was recovered by the British freighter King George then Munich's fleetmate the hay pack freighter elangan found and identified three of the Munich's barges over the next few days three emergency boys three life rafts the barrel and five life vests were either cited or recovered from the ocean but they were all empty on December 20 the search was formally called off but the company haypag and the West German government continued to search being aided by some 80 other ships on February 16th of next year a passing ship spotted a flooded damaged Lifeboat and printed on it was the name Munchen this was the last thing ever seen of the ship investigators had very little to go on but that damaged Lifeboat with the blocked tackle still attached but it told a very Vivid story parts of the blocks tackle the pins usually hanging vertically had been bent and Twisted by some enormous Force enough to rip the Lifeboat off its mountains entirely at the time the existence and occurrence of rogue waves was misunderstood so the loss of the ship was put down to bad weather but in time the issue was Revisited all the evidence pointed to a horrifying fact that Munich had been the victim of one or several rogue waves that night as the ship batted its way through the storm it likely plunged into a trough on the reverse side of a wave just like Lusitania and Michelangelo had done the wave would have smashed down onto the deck torn the Lifeboat off of its davits and then plowed into the bridge smashing windows and possibly disabling the crew without steering or crew on the bridge Munich may have drifted broadside Into the Storm waves and begun to list at an alarming angle that distress call had mentioned 50 degrees to starboard the ship floated this way dead in the water for hours being battered by waves as the crew inside clung on for their lives but in the end help could not arrive in time Munich would have rolled maybe even totally capsized and flooded in short order it was a horrifying end for the ship and her crew and today the Munich remains undiscovered lying somewhere down there on the sea floor a testament to the Fearsome power of Mother Nature ladies and gentlemen it's your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs thank you so much for watching this video please think about liking and subscribing to the channel you can support my channel on patreon you'll find the link down in the description until then stay safe stay happy and I'll see you again next time

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 1,281,812

Keywords: great ocean liners, maritime history, ocean liners, famous oceanliners, ships documentary, history of ships, engineering, history, ships, documentary

Id: 6uV6Eg0Ndn0

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 08 2022