Rogues at sea
A video review of 2002 documentary “Freak Wave”
Rogue waves are stuff of legends and seagoing folklore, at least that’s been accepted for in marine engineering and naval architecture circles for years. Reports of incredible damage, disappearance of ships under mysterious circumstance have been gathering quite a bit of media coverage in the last decades. Freak Wave, a 2002 documentary style show, co produced by the BBC and Discovery Channel, explore the phenomena and offers some pretty convincing arguments that explain the rogue wave, a 100 foot wall of water that crushes large, even well designed ships with fury.
The show starts by laying out the predominate belief of a linear wave patterns and how vessels are built accordingly. Ok so it’s a little dry at first, but the show quickly gets interesting with lost of visuals of dramatic seas and serious vessel damage, that makes even the most seas
oned mariner wonder the strength of their ship. A TV “who dunnit” theme takes over, although not overly tacky, and introduces to the science of wave prediction, using the latest technology. The research shows trends that throws conventional wave wisdom into a tailspin.
Towards the end of the program, an American Wave Mathematician, Dr. Orsborn, gets giddy as he explains that a wave pattern matches a theoretical model that most experts had discounted for many decades. The data all points to two different types of waves, and unfortunately, ships were built with one type in mind.
The show is sure to interest any mariner and certainly brings a pause to mind, regarding the overall design of your ship in the open ocean. The production quality is excellent as most BBC 
documentaries are, and the subject and the research is presented by a wide array of academics and professionals. I highly recommend this show, if not for the subject matter, then for the cool and dramatic rough seas pictured, and the damage they have caused.
You can read a further description of the program on BBC’s website. Wikipedia, like always, has a neat page on rogue waves, and you can actually the program reviewed above at you tube, you can the first of 5 parts, below. Pictures are screen shots from the show.
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Tides are attributed to our moon and sun. With out our moon this earth would not survive. Our solar system is continually changing and some major transitional changes are coming our way. Rogue waves have increased in both numbers and size as have other incidents, i.e. hurricanes, change in numbers of sun spots this too will dramatically change, etc. etc. Planetary alignment has always influenced "life" on earth due to gravitational pull. Looking forward to an event that millions today are speculating as to its impact, , come December 12, 2012 in an incredible planetary alignment. For the first time in modern history, science and religion are finding a common ground in agreement. This will not be discussed in conventional media…owned and operated by corporate giants, for the financial impact will be devastating once individuals begin to realize and accept the basic facts of the above. Riots etc. will begin shortly thereafter. And the very logistics involved in this process will determine that the old values of the Nation States which was primarily based on competition and exploitation will have to eventually give way to a collaborative effort, where cooperation will be the dominate social value. This will arise not out of some new political, social or economic theory but the very desire of the human species to continue to survive and be successful.
As our rogue waves and other events continue to escalate, avail yourself time to explore our universe. One of the best sites I have found is http://www.viewzone.com Don’t be put off by the beginning, for I almost was. Scroll on down and find out what has and is happening out there that has always and will always have an impact on our life here on earth.
If I were to wager a guess at why, I’d say that users don’t “browse” forms. The interaction style users engage in with forms is different, and requires its own study and design best practices.
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