Freak Waves ???

[shaman]

Hey Guys,
Following that huge thread concerning that couple that overturned their tinny at Wello the other arvo, I was wondering whether any of you had experienced any freak waves in Moreton Bay at any time?
I have experienced freak type waves at least twice around the Peel Island area. i lived and fished the Redland Bay area for over 8 years before moving to the coast and thought I might share a couple of experiences and maybe someone out there in cyberfisho space could supply some form of answer.
The first occurance was between Peel and Macleay islands one morning travelling south and traversing a rather nasty n/ne chop/swell but my haines handling it quite well & I was getting a bit of air untilI was broadsided by a 1to1-1/2 mtr at least wave travelling west-east, this wave kicked up & came out of nowhere and as we were getting ourselves back together I scanned the bay and could see nothing that would or could of caused this.
On numerous occassions i would be sitting fishing and along would come a wave out of nowhere and I just thought it must be something that happens.
I was telling a buddy of mine who fishes out of scarborough about this and he told me i was full of crap until one morning we were parked over a shallow reef off Pats Point Macleay Island fishing in about 1-2 metres and anchored in his new 20 footer. The water was like glass with no traffic at all and about 6.30 am on a weekday when coming from the n/e this 1to2 mtr wave came across the bay and he s#$% himself trying to pull the anchor up before it hit us & damaged his boat. He was in shock as there was absolutely no evidence of traffic or wind or anything & obviously believed me after that.
any ideas guys?

[dynamicspot]

Yep can agree you do get freak waves out there they can come from no where

[sf17fisherman]

not sure what causes them but i remember very well as a child walking the port breakwall
we were standing at the end of it with a gental 1m -1.5m swell rolling in lapping the rocks as it went when all of a sudden this huge wave of 4odd meters hit the wall and took us all by shock and covered everyone standing on the wall with water
never heard of anybody getting sweeped off the rocks or anything like that but from that day on i sure know freak waves are out there

[bidkev]

Had a couple appear out of nowhere, one at Curtin and another near Mud. On both occasions I could see a container ship in the very far off distance (speck). Some of those buggers put out a big swell and they can roll on forever and take a long time to die out or reach you.

My first time through the seaway in kingtin nearly gave me a heart attack. We sat in the seaway waiting for first light and could see a fair rolling swell but luckily no breakers. A tinny about 12ft shot through so we followed about 2 minutes later. Just passing the end of the wall when this huge swell appeared out of nowhere.......I mean huge! kingtin was 6.1 metres and she was stood at 45 degrees and climbing, with this huge swell towering over us and I couldn't for the life of me imagine that we would get out of there alive if it broke. Anyway, I kept her at the same speed and we just climbed over it and dropped onto a flat sea behind. I looked behind and the sea outside the wall seemed to be about 15 to 20 ft higher than the seaway with a practically straight drop down...weird looking? We could see that tinny chugging down towards mermaid and wondered if he had the slightest idea how lucky he was.

kev

[DICER]

could these waves be caused by destructive interference or were they oncoming swells that were seen ~100 metres away?

[seabug]

Years back I was fishing with a workmate halfway across Lady Bay from the breakwater at at Warrnambool.
Calm day ,half metre swell ,we were just setting our lines .
Looked south and a hundred metres away was a swell of approx 3-4metres

Boat road over like a duck,but could have been a different outcome if swell had curled over.
Only the one,back to smooth to slight sea after that.
Keep a bit better eye on the sea since then

Regards
Seabug

[blaze]

Strange explanation for a wave "freak"
they are all caused by something- pressure waves, ship bow waves, part of a set that hasnt been studied etc
They happen more than we are aware, That I am sure of.
LIke a spot I fish off the rocks from has a reef 150m out the front, can be a mirror surface all day and one will pop up between the reef and the rock and submerse the rock which is about 3m high (aptly name SINKING ROCK)
I think if we spend more time studying the sea (you know, research, science) there would be a lot less freak waves and more knowledgable boaties.
cheers
blaze
ps
bloody scarery at times when we are caught unaware

[Mad_Barry]

I've got no doubt "Unusual" or "out of pattern" type waves occur, for various reasons.

I've also got no doubt these 'freak waves' are used as a handy option when passing the buck around after 'some' boating accidents.

[adriancorrea]

I dont know if it was a freak wave or not.
But as most of you know we were hit by one just out of bribie and overturned, still to this day we are wondering what happened lol

Also another night sitting in calm water just off peel and no one else around and all off a sudden one came rolling through, pretty scary in the dark.

Tight Lines
Adrian

[2iar]

I've got no doubt "Unusual" or "out of pattern" type waves occur, for various reasons.

I've also got no doubt these 'freak waves' are used as a handy option when passing the buck around after 'some' boating accidents.

You've nailed it there Dicko IMO. As Blaze and others have pointed it, they're not all that uncommon - so hardly deserve to be termed "freak".

Nearly every time you hear of a boat overturned in the bay, the commercial news stations use the term. Gets on my tits, I have to say.

I suppose it's a semantic point at the end of the day.

Mike

[roz]

I think you are spot on Dicko & Blaze, always seems to be a 'freak wave' that gets the rock hoppers.

Of course they occur, but often used as a reason for poor judgement.

Roz

[Charlie]

The freak wave that gets rockfishermen happens at the turn of the tide.Waves are always smaller as the tide drops then a massive set comes though as the tide turns,pretty predictable really if your experienced.
Regards
Charlie

[fish2eat]

The press HAVE to have a neat "pidgeon hole" explanation for everything

When boats overturn, its a "freak wave"

When aircraft crash its "engine failure"

When someone gets attacked by a shark its a "rogue shark"

When someone gets blown up in Iraq its "insurgents" or "muslin extremists"

nothing we can do about it, its tabloid journalism, easy to understand news in bite size pieces for the masses. Easy for journalists to understand as well

[shaman]

You've nailed it there Dicko IMO. As Blaze and others have pointed it, they're not all that uncommon - so hardly deserve to be termed "freak".

Mike[/quote]

I dunno what u want to call them or if it really makes that much of a difference when your broadsided by a FREAK wave travelling west to east in an n/ne swell between Peel & Coochie which for those who are not familiar with the area is a fairly sheltered area. I gotta tell u i was pretty FREAKED. The peel area seems to have a fair bit of this action maybe it's caused by swells hitting shallow banks sort of a tsunami type thing.

[GCBrett]

If you're really interested perhaps give the Qld EPA a call - they have wave monitoring buoys all along the coast. If there is some pattern to these things, they might know about it. Their website might even have some info. The Bureau of Meteorology has a standard warning when they give their swell predictions - something like "max. wave height may be twice this", so obviously a regular occurence.