I was in the Denmark straits last year on a trawler. These are some 200 feet long, and built to ride. (the shorter ones go more into the "chop" while pulling).
Anyway, it amazed me how rough the seas were, even in good weather. If you can good for that area (around the polar circle, between Iceland and Greenland, - in January)
Looking back the deck, one sometimes hardly saw the sky!
One fine day the sea was particularly vicious. We had been out for some weeks, so my seasickness (there it's ...mandatory)was long gone, and my balance getting more confident every day. So, we got hit particularly nasty by a wave of unknown size. It was a big one, and I never saw it, for I was stacking boxes in the cargo bay (freezer), but had to drop my job and hold on to a pillar to stay on the legs.
I was lucky that the stacks didn't come crashing on to me, and actually the mid-deck crew went down looking for me, fearing the worst. I was fine, and stacking, - and swearing....fediddlein waves....
One of the enginer later told me that the listing gauge went to 50 degs. Captain actually abandoned the area and took off for an area some 150 miles south. It was much nicer...and warmer...and more redfish.
N-Atlantic is just plain mean at times.
