How big do waves get in the ocean?

[xbrit]

We had a storm hit the UK (I say storm, was actually a hurricane lol) in 1986 - spend the entire time at sea - when the storm had abated, we'd lost all the signal halyards, all the signal lamps on the port side (at the time we had 20 inch lamps - which are big and heavy) - and most of the guardrails were bent/mangled. We had a veteran ships company, but still had big troubles with mal de mere (seasickness) which was quite amusing (for those of us who dont suffer with it...lol).

Nice thing tho, there were no queues for scran (food)

Wurzel

I was flying back from somewhere in the US the day that storm hit UK, we got diverted to Glasgow and ended up working from the airport there for three days looking after other diverted RAF aircraft.

[Angus]

During a troop transport on the QE1 during WWII she was laid over on her side by a wave.
The idea of Rouge waves was disbelieved for years but with better radar, radios, and buoys we can no detect waves has high as 150+ feet. crossing open water with no apparent origin i.e. storm.

Have been looking into that a bit. We have "systematic rogues" at some beaches, - that saying big ones but with a somewhat regular interval. Some locals say something like "in this wind direction, it's one out of 14" and so on.
There have been casualties where tourists too close got swept out. On the retreating tide and in the N-Atlantic, anyone is dead withing minutes.
A friend of mine is a tourist guide, and had a close shave with one of those while getting his people from the beach.
A girl I was once showing a little bay also had quite a bath, while not listening to my warning early enough.
Had I not gone for getting her out, she'd been drowned.