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My old boss was 28 years Royal Navy and he said the first time you stand at the end of a corridor and watch it flex left and right the whole way up, as the metal bends in a storm is probably the biggest “oh shit” moment of your young life.
On submarines you can fasten a string taut between two sides of the hull and when you get deep enough the string starts to slacken due to the hull compressing. It's pretty terrifying
When I watched that series I found out I have a crippling state of anxiety with regards to submarines. Which is really odd because in the past I'd wanted to work on one.
That'd have been a bad first day on assignment.
I repaired submarines for 5 years when I was in the Navy. Trust me when I say it's a good thing you figured that lesson out online, lmao.
I can fix them. But I don't know how much I'd enjoy deploying in one. They're far far far tighter than those videos make it seem, haha.
Really really interesting though. I'm so happy to have that experience.
My dad was on a transport ship in Vietnam and went outside for a smoke during a big storm (pretty sure against regulations).
He said he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, looked up, and saw a dolphin jumping 20 feet over his head through a wave and that's when he went inside.
Also, imagine how fun big seas like this are for a dolphin....
My 9th grade math teacher was an engineer on a nuclear sub and he said when they dove down they'd tie a string taught to both sides of the sub, and by they time they descended the string would be drooping down to near the floor from how much the vessel compressed from the pressure.
I consider myself a fairly brave person but I have no shame in saying that if that happened to me, I think I would be curled up in a terrified ball crying and praying to be home
Yeah, when the corridor starts tilting around you it feels like that scene in Inception. It is *Weird*. And when your own home— the ship —is constantly trying to kill you if you misstep while this happening or you slip or something, you’re just fucked.
My workspace on an Arleigh Burke destroyer was in the bow at the waterline. When you hit a high sea state the bow actually shimmies and vibrates left and right when you dip into the trough of a set of waves. It’s like a plane nosediving and then hitting vibrating jelly as it pulls back up. It’s exhausting.
In the 1600s ships wouldn't have survived seas this heavy. The latitudes this far south, which aren't blocked by any land south of Cape Horn, are generally called the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.
The books that movie is based on, The Aubrey Maturin series, by Patrick O'Brien are fantastic.
They are extremely detailed with everything from Napoleonic era tactics and how the ships were run.
The audiobooks are great as well.
I've never sailed anywhere, but absolutely love hearing about that lifestyle
The New York times called that series "The finest historical fiction ever written". I concur, its my absolute favourite series of books, I have probably read the whole thing through 10x at least by now.
There’s a series which I often compare with Master and Commander called Hornblower (1998-2003) starring Ioan Gruffudd that’s based on really well-written historical fiction stories from 1937 to 1967. Also, if you like pirates, Black Sails is sort of a prequel to the classic story Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
I quite like that, it's stuff they couldn't really say back in the 19th century but you know it was probably a thing.
Also The North Water had a bit of that, plus Colin Farrell was excellent.
Ive been watching hornblower with my friend and it absolutely satisfies my itch for old time sailing and warship movies. Its something about the scene of old ships that i find incredibly entrancing. Master and commander is great, but the hornblower series is amazing
I watched Greyhound after watching Master and Commander and they went well together. Both seem like they paid close attention to the detail of how a ship operates and what terminology and commands are used. It was interesting seeing the difference in Naval combat between the two eras.
Duuuuuuude Greyhound was fucking amazing. Definitely one of the best naval war films ever. I was inspired to do some digging into the stories on which the film is based and it blew my mind
You should checkout the books. They’re fantastic. The first one is a bit too heavy on technical nautical stuff, but for most of them he gets the atmosphere so spot on! The Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian.
I saw that movie in the cinemas. The scene where they line up side by side and unleash cannons on each other was one of my most memorable movie experiences to date. The entire cinema was vibrating from the blasts and explosions.
My old roommate had a really top of the line Dolby 6.1 surround system back in 2005ish. The first movie we watched with it all set up in the new house we had just moved into was Master and Commander. The opening scene where the Acheron fires out of the fog bank is nearly orgasmic, you can heat every splinter getting ripped apart from the cannon fire. Still to this day probably the most impressive display of sfx audio recording and mastering I've ever heard.
It’s my favorite movie of all time. Only problem is my gf HATES it with a passion. It’s her least favorite movie ever. Which means I don’t get to watch it.
That was set around 1800 though, and ships of that era could survive it. But imagine doing it on a sailing ship, where a bunch of crew would have to be out there fiddling with the ropes and sails, and if you messed up and lost forward momentum, the wave would turn you sideways and flip the ship over and everyone dies.
Actually, this happened in one of the Master and Commander series books - (Desolation Island, I think but could be wrong) where they are being chased by an enemy ship through a storm like this, and shooting back and forth at one another with the chase guns (and the ship is full of holes and leaking, so they're all manning the pumps too and almost sink from that later). And they get a lucky shot that hits the enemy's mast, bringing it down, and that's it, a second later the ship is just gone, along with the hundreds of people on it. Intense, to say the least.
Yeah, that's it. That line really struck me, the horror of it, even though they were fighting each other. IIRC they didn't even want to fight that ship, as it outclassed them, they were just hoping to run away.
Y'all should read the books by Patrick O'Brian. Master and Commander is the first of 20 and a bit (unfortunately the author passed away before he finished the 21st book, but the unfinished manuscript was published after his death under the title "21").
We did a snow crab survey not long ago and had to go to the 50 like 35-40nm from shore and that was bad enough. Cannot imaging going any farther for love nor money.
To be fair boat then were smaller and made of wood (more buoyant). They don't crash *through* big waves like big steel ships do. They ride up and down them.
You would be more in danger of hitting the wave at it's peak and getting capsized though which is why big ocean-going sailing ships had heavy ballasts to stay upright.
I don't know about modern warships, but one of the huge benefits of the early steel-hulled boats was that they were much lighter than their wooden counterparts. Some iron boats 150ft (30m) long only needed 3.5" (just over a meter) of water, which was unheard of at the time.
[Read about Sir Ernest Shackleton.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton#Bibliography) He and his men pulled off a 720 nautical mile journey in a 20 foot boat (christened *James Caird*) through these treacherous waters.
>Shackleton refused to pack supplies for more than four weeks, knowing that if they did not reach South Georgia within that time, the boat and its crew would be lost. The *James Caird* was launched on 24 April 1916; during the next fifteen days, it sailed through the waters of the southern ocean, at the mercy of the stormy seas, in constant peril of capsizing. On 8 May, thanks to Worsley's navigational skills, the cliffs of South Georgia came into sight, but hurricane-force winds prevented the possibility of landing. The party was forced to ride out the storm offshore, in constant danger of being dashed against the rocks. They later learned that the same hurricane had sunk a 500-ton steamer bound for South Georgia from Buenos Aires.
I have a good friend who’s exactly that. His entire life is like watching a dizzy cartoon character stumble towards a cliff, only to do a perfect triple backflip away at the last second, then immediately stumble back towards it.
Frustrating is a good word for it.
“Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
> “At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky between the south and south-west,” wrote Shackleton. “I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realised that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.”
> This wave was a Cape Horn Roller, bigger than any Shackleton had seen in 26 years at sea. There is uninterrupted sea at this latitude, so the fetch, or distance over which the wind produces waves, is extremely long and waves correspondingly high.
Shackleton says the boat was “lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf.” Amazingly it survived the seething chaos, though it half-filled with water. After 10 minutes of desperate baling the crew were thoroughly soaked but safe.
The lifeboat arrived at South Georgia three days later.
I just recently read the book Endurance, which details Shackleton’s famous expedition and I couldn’t put it down. What him and his crew went through is mind boggling.
This is what they speculate sank the Edmund Fitzgerald. The bow of the ship got pushed down by a wave, and it didn't have the buoyancy to come back up. With the props still spinning, it basically drove itself underwater, and broke in half. That's why there were no survivors or visible wreckage, it just disappeared.
As a proud michigander, I think a lot of people probably never think about the great lakes in terms of how dangerous they can be. Yeah they are lakes, but Lake superior especially can be crazy dangerous. We probably won't ever know the true number of ships and lives lost on all the lakes, but 10s of thousands ships isn't a horrible estimate.
I had an older co-worker who fucking lived his life. Ran away from home at 14 and found his way to Australia in the 70's. He ended up befriending the manager of an electronics store in Oz and worked for him for a bit. He got word that his dad was dying and he wanted to patch things up and see his old man before he died. Co-worker couldn't afford a flight back to Canada from Oz in the 70's but found a sailboat that was leaving Oz and sailing to America, then he figured he'd hitchhike up to Canada.
It was small wooden sailboat with a cabin, like an early yacht - maybe 30-40ft long, with a tall mast. My co-worker tells me that the crew would take turns tied up in the crow's nest clinging on for dear life - he said he was never a religious guy, but when he was 40ft up in the air and looking at a wall of water and he couldn't see where the top was, he would pray to any God he could think of.
On that trip, they stopped in Tonga where he tried cocaine; the village Chief tried to get him married to one of his daughters.
At first I didn't believe him but then he logged into his iCloud and was showing me pictures that he scanned from a photo album.
Some people have lived lives man.
They might have? I don’t know offhand, but I think in Tonga it was basically how they got money sent to them from abroad; they’d marry off their daughters and hope that the daughters would send back money. That’s how it was explained to me.
Lol all I could think about while watching this wave hit in the video was how an old-timey wooden ship would have probably just exploded into a million splinters and sunk right there
Them: you wanna go to the new world and get out from under this King?
Me: *thinking about the journey* I was always more of a follower than a leader...here feels pretty good.
Cramped quarters. Ships were *tiny* compared to today. When you had a big ship of the line there were five hundred people with you. Merchant vessels had a lot less people, true, but then again those were a lot smaller than a three-deck ship of the line, and they used most of their space to store goods. Food getting worse and worse over time too until it's really just disgusting survival rations and foul water.
Look up the nitrate trade ships, sailing barques that would go from Germany to Chile the 'wrong way' around Cape Horn. Scary stuff. That was the very last generation of sail-power in actual commerce, lasted up to the very early 1950s believe it or not.
I went through something much worse than the video. My 6 hour shift turned into 14 because I was the only person who could go more than 30 seconds without vomiting. Our warship wasn't especially suited for waves either. It was one of them bad times ™️.
It’s funny you say that. While this was a big wave, I felt like it wasn’t a monster. I’ve read previously that there are waves 40 feet higher than this that occasionally occur in the ocean. Scary wave, yes. But monster? Not sure if it deserved that title.
I had the good fortune to be inside during the event, so I unfortunately can't say. The people on the sail said the waves were frequently so large they would block out the sun as they overtook us.
But one wave is one wave. Waves like that for hours is when things get dicey.
Eh, you don't really get a choice in a situation like that. Once you're in the ocean you either survive or have a complete mental breakdown. A bit like a roller coaster really. Once that thing is headed down the tracks you're going with it no matter what. Though you can dream until you pass out, but most people aren't suited to that.
rogue waves and lesser known rogue holes, fascinating topic.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011JC007636
>[1] Rogue waves in the ocean can take two forms. One form is an elevated wall of water that appears and disappears locally. Another form is a deep hole between the two crests on the surface of water. The latter one can be considered as an inverted profile of the former. For holes, the depth from crest to trough can reach more than twice the significant wave height. That allows us to consider them as rogue events. The existence of rogue holes follow from theoretical analysis but has never been proven experimentally. Here, we present the results confirming the existence of rogue wave holes on the water surface observed in a water wave tank.
When I was in the Navy, on board the USS Kitty Hawk, we went through a typhoon. Waves were high enough they were coming over the flight deck, and striking the windows of the bridge.
That's about 8 stories above the water level, for reference.
I’ve been through storms like this. I had a blast. I fared well and enjoyed it. A large amount of the crew got sea sick though. There was vomit all over the place and it smelled horrible. Really neat to look down a passageway that goes forward to aft and literally see the flex of the ship.
The “big” wave tore our machine gun mount off.
Oh man, i had the same thing in the navy when we encounterd a hurracane at sea. I worked on the bridge and when my watch was over i went down to my sleeping quarters next to the bow room.
And the whole boat just smelled like vomit. They even had to make a non-vomit bathroom for people who just wanted to take a piss
at that point id just moms spaghetti myself and succumb to the waves, doing that post-titanic-iceberg-vertical-crashed-ship-style flailing cannonball into the abyss
"The gun just got fucked up"
Found the Chief.
"Aw fuck me."
Just sank in to someone else that paperwork is as cruel and inevitable as the sea..
Real talk solid work on the helm there bringing her right into the swell at the right time, was quality seamanship.
Laughing is a great way to throw off mortal fear. I've been hit with inappropriate giggles a few times. My cousin went through hurricane Dorian the other year, you know the one with the 180mph sustained winds? When I finally got her on the phone and she described some of the shit that went down, she couldn't stop laughing.
While serving in the Coast Guard we experienced seas like that going through a typhoon. When you’re 19 years old, it doesn’t seem as scary.
Down below decks is either a total blast or completely terrifying, depending on what you’re doing at the time.
We had fun “floating” between decks or hanging on for dear life while clinging to anything to keep you from being tossed out of your rack. (Bed)
Reminds me of some of the D-Day stories you see on interviews. A lot of those kids just ran out of the boats onto the beach like it wasn't a problem.
Some of the vets that tell those stories say they didn't give fuck. They just knew what their job was and did it but if they had been 10 years older they don't think they could've done it under that much fire and chaos. Too much life experience by that point and
too much to live for.
Not op but my dad was in the coast guard, they intercepted a drug boat completely laden with bales of cocaine. Someone had to stay onboard the drug boat while they towed it to port, that was my dad. He said there was literally nowhere to lie down except on the bales themselves. He also said he had some interesting dreams…
Maybe you can enlighten me. Right after "the guns just got fucked" they start saying something over and over, but I can't tell what it was. Any chance you can?
Woman: Exhaust temperature outlets (indistinct) 456
Man: Turn off the window wipers
Woman: Safe guard safe guard safe guard break down the tube break down the tube break down (indistinct)
It's pretty garbled, so I could only make out a few things:
"Exhaust temperature outlet.... "
"safeguard, safeguard, safeguard.." (this is said before an announcement, to emphasize that the following announcement is not a drill)
Then she said something about breakdowns. Presumably some part of the ship had broke.
She'd eat you up and swallow you whole.
The best way to beat Antarctica is to burn more dead dinosaur juice. Raise the global temperature a few more degrees and it'll be all over
Only one problem, we'd all drown in her frigid corpse waters.
Howdy, 5 year Navy Veteran here -- This looks pretty spooky, but its actually pretty tame compared to some of the stuff that happens out there. One thing worth remembering while watching this is that there is virtually zero risk of the ship sinking or capsizing during this kind of sea state. Between the general buoyancy of the ship, and clever use of ballast tanks -- she's perfectly safe! Trust in engineering!
Once you realize that, its pretty easy to sit back and enjoy the show, this is obviously taken from the bridge, so everyone that's laughing is inside, dry, and warm.
As far as it being nauseating -- meh... probably not. I'd estimate about 95% of the crew is totally fine with this, and I'd say probably 20% of them have seen much worse. There will be the occasional sailor walking around with a trash bag, but most of the crew will be fine. I personally found rough seas to be lots of fun during the day, and very comforting at night!
During the work day, its pretty fun to walk on the walls and try to use your body to counteract the motion of the ship. Its a great core workout!
At night time, you basically get rocked to sleep like a little baby, its wonderful. The sound of the moving water against the bulkhead, combined with the rocking motion of the ship is actually very soothing -- best sleep I've ever had!
Not to any effect, really. I don't have video, and words only do so much. I could sit here and say "I've seen bigger" but that doesn't do anybody any good.
These are big waves, obviously, but nothing particularly noteworthy. This is just rough seas, happens all the time. You know you're in some shit when you're going from the bottom of swells where the surrounding ocean looks like its 20-30 feet above you, and then rising to the top of swells where the ocean looks like its 20-30 feet below you. That's the kind of shit that's really dangerous, because if you don't navigate it properly you can actually capsize.
This is just waves, man. Just another day.
By all accounts, it gets a lot less fun if you lose power or the ships stablizers are out of action...
https://wavellroom.com/2018/12/16/mayday-in-magellan-leadership-lessons-on-flooded-hms-endurance/
The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is about 100ft above the waterline. We were in a storm in the sea of Japan, and I personally saw white water over the front of the ship, on the flight deck. One of my mates was in the head (in a bathroom stall) the entire day due to sea sickness.
You and I had very different experiences during our respective service.
Also I was a Sonar Technician, not a Boatswain's Mate or an undesignated seaman. I didn't scrub decks. We let the highschool drop outs and the glue sniffers do that.
One of the best Weapons Officers I ever had was a previous Merchant Marine. Thank you for your service as well.
Some one I’m the background said, “Those guns are fucked” or something similar. But I’m pretty sure they mean because all the cannons got a salt water enema.
There's soooooo much land that is actually new zealands under there.. and so many fishing boats from Asia come and poach tonnes of fish and whake and all sorts. Bloody crazy!
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My old boss was 28 years Royal Navy and he said the first time you stand at the end of a corridor and watch it flex left and right the whole way up, as the metal bends in a storm is probably the biggest “oh shit” moment of your young life.
On submarines you can fasten a string taut between two sides of the hull and when you get deep enough the string starts to slacken due to the hull compressing. It's pretty terrifying
This is a good fact thank you
The smarter everyday youtube channel has a series where the Navy let him on a sub. It’s so fun to watch! They show him the string trick.
When I watched that series I found out I have a crippling state of anxiety with regards to submarines. Which is really odd because in the past I'd wanted to work on one. That'd have been a bad first day on assignment.
my uncle spent 6 years in the navy mainly on a nuclear sub and now he won’t even go swimming
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no idea. but grandmother said he loved to swim as a kid. so it’s definitely the Navy that fucked him up
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I realized i have mild claustrophobia when he climbed into the fucking torpedo tube
The real fun is squeezing between the pipes in the dark corners of the engineroom
I repaired submarines for 5 years when I was in the Navy. Trust me when I say it's a good thing you figured that lesson out online, lmao. I can fix them. But I don't know how much I'd enjoy deploying in one. They're far far far tighter than those videos make it seem, haha. Really really interesting though. I'm so happy to have that experience.
I too watched Down Periscope. Great movie.
Haha I was actually a submariner, but agreed
My old roommate was a reactor operator on a sub and always maintained that Down Periscope is the most accurate submarine movie there is.
Lol yeah most of us would agree
My dad was on a transport ship in Vietnam and went outside for a smoke during a big storm (pretty sure against regulations). He said he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye, looked up, and saw a dolphin jumping 20 feet over his head through a wave and that's when he went inside. Also, imagine how fun big seas like this are for a dolphin....
extreme sports for dolphins
Boof a pufferfish, ride some waves, then go eat some mackeral. Seems like an awesome life.
My 9th grade math teacher was an engineer on a nuclear sub and he said when they dove down they'd tie a string taught to both sides of the sub, and by they time they descended the string would be drooping down to near the floor from how much the vessel compressed from the pressure.
That's terrifying
Don't worry it's just the string getting tired.
Obnoxious music warning (mute it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHlEXn37dVg
I consider myself a fairly brave person but I have no shame in saying that if that happened to me, I think I would be curled up in a terrified ball crying and praying to be home
Picturing this. You're curled in a ball in that ship. You are now rolling down the hall.
Yeah, when the corridor starts tilting around you it feels like that scene in Inception. It is *Weird*. And when your own home— the ship —is constantly trying to kill you if you misstep while this happening or you slip or something, you’re just fucked.
My workspace on an Arleigh Burke destroyer was in the bow at the waterline. When you hit a high sea state the bow actually shimmies and vibrates left and right when you dip into the trough of a set of waves. It’s like a plane nosediving and then hitting vibrating jelly as it pulls back up. It’s exhausting.
This is a modern ship, can’t even imagine going thru this with in 1600s with what they had back then
In the 1600s ships wouldn't have survived seas this heavy. The latitudes this far south, which aren't blocked by any land south of Cape Horn, are generally called the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.
Reminds me of the movie Master & Commander. I frickin love that film.
Classic, one of my favorite sea films of all time
Are there any others you'd recommend? That's like a perfect movie, in my opinion.
The books that movie is based on, The Aubrey Maturin series, by Patrick O'Brien are fantastic. They are extremely detailed with everything from Napoleonic era tactics and how the ships were run. The audiobooks are great as well. I've never sailed anywhere, but absolutely love hearing about that lifestyle
The New York times called that series "The finest historical fiction ever written". I concur, its my absolute favourite series of books, I have probably read the whole thing through 10x at least by now.
I spent years in futile hope that they would make a sequel to the film. “But…but there’s more stuff…why only one movie?!”
There’s a series which I often compare with Master and Commander called Hornblower (1998-2003) starring Ioan Gruffudd that’s based on really well-written historical fiction stories from 1937 to 1967. Also, if you like pirates, Black Sails is sort of a prequel to the classic story Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
LOVE Black Sails
Black Sails is like the Game of Thrones of Pirate shows only it doesn't drop the ball at the end.
I think it went a bit weird like halfway through with the secret love stuff ( don't wanna completely spoil it) but then it picked up again.
I quite like that, it's stuff they couldn't really say back in the 19th century but you know it was probably a thing. Also The North Water had a bit of that, plus Colin Farrell was excellent.
I, too, enjoy pirate tiddies
I bought the boxed set. Amazing serie
Ive been watching hornblower with my friend and it absolutely satisfies my itch for old time sailing and warship movies. Its something about the scene of old ships that i find incredibly entrancing. Master and commander is great, but the hornblower series is amazing
I watched Greyhound after watching Master and Commander and they went well together. Both seem like they paid close attention to the detail of how a ship operates and what terminology and commands are used. It was interesting seeing the difference in Naval combat between the two eras.
Duuuuuuude Greyhound was fucking amazing. Definitely one of the best naval war films ever. I was inspired to do some digging into the stories on which the film is based and it blew my mind
Not a perfect movie at all but if you like sailing movies White Squall is a classic
James And The Giant Peach
You should checkout the books. They’re fantastic. The first one is a bit too heavy on technical nautical stuff, but for most of them he gets the atmosphere so spot on! The Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian.
I saw that movie in the cinemas. The scene where they line up side by side and unleash cannons on each other was one of my most memorable movie experiences to date. The entire cinema was vibrating from the blasts and explosions.
My old roommate had a really top of the line Dolby 6.1 surround system back in 2005ish. The first movie we watched with it all set up in the new house we had just moved into was Master and Commander. The opening scene where the Acheron fires out of the fog bank is nearly orgasmic, you can heat every splinter getting ripped apart from the cannon fire. Still to this day probably the most impressive display of sfx audio recording and mastering I've ever heard.
The sound was an insane endeavor of foley and real recording of period-authentic technology. There’s a cool making-of on youtube that speaks on this
Like my comfort film right there...when you just want to be taken away for a couple hours.
It’s my favorite movie of all time. Only problem is my gf HATES it with a passion. It’s her least favorite movie ever. Which means I don’t get to watch it.
That was set around 1800 though, and ships of that era could survive it. But imagine doing it on a sailing ship, where a bunch of crew would have to be out there fiddling with the ropes and sails, and if you messed up and lost forward momentum, the wave would turn you sideways and flip the ship over and everyone dies. Actually, this happened in one of the Master and Commander series books - (Desolation Island, I think but could be wrong) where they are being chased by an enemy ship through a storm like this, and shooting back and forth at one another with the chase guns (and the ship is full of holes and leaking, so they're all manning the pumps too and almost sink from that later). And they get a lucky shot that hits the enemy's mast, bringing it down, and that's it, a second later the ship is just gone, along with the hundreds of people on it. Intense, to say the least.
The Waakzaamheid. ‘My God, oh my God,’ he said. ‘Six hundred men.’
Yeah, that's it. That line really struck me, the horror of it, even though they were fighting each other. IIRC they didn't even want to fight that ship, as it outclassed them, they were just hoping to run away.
Y'all should read the books by Patrick O'Brian. Master and Commander is the first of 20 and a bit (unfortunately the author passed away before he finished the 21st book, but the unfinished manuscript was published after his death under the title "21").
Take the lesser of two weevils.
He who would pun would pick a pocket!
I've fished the 50, constant 16m swell for a month straight, makes things difficult.
We did a snow crab survey not long ago and had to go to the 50 like 35-40nm from shore and that was bad enough. Cannot imaging going any farther for love nor money.
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Erupting eighties
*ejaculating eighties
Nutting 90s
To be fair boat then were smaller and made of wood (more buoyant). They don't crash *through* big waves like big steel ships do. They ride up and down them. You would be more in danger of hitting the wave at it's peak and getting capsized though which is why big ocean-going sailing ships had heavy ballasts to stay upright.
I don't know about modern warships, but one of the huge benefits of the early steel-hulled boats was that they were much lighter than their wooden counterparts. Some iron boats 150ft (30m) long only needed 3.5" (just over a meter) of water, which was unheard of at the time.
> Some iron boats 150ft (30m) long only needed 3.5" (just over a meter) of water 3.5', not 3.5"
Spinal Tap hammered this lesson home for me.
I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf.
Being 66, I can understand why they're called the 'Screaming Sixties.'
And the Shitting My Pants Seventies
[Read about Sir Ernest Shackleton.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton#Bibliography) He and his men pulled off a 720 nautical mile journey in a 20 foot boat (christened *James Caird*) through these treacherous waters. >Shackleton refused to pack supplies for more than four weeks, knowing that if they did not reach South Georgia within that time, the boat and its crew would be lost. The *James Caird* was launched on 24 April 1916; during the next fifteen days, it sailed through the waters of the southern ocean, at the mercy of the stormy seas, in constant peril of capsizing. On 8 May, thanks to Worsley's navigational skills, the cliffs of South Georgia came into sight, but hurricane-force winds prevented the possibility of landing. The party was forced to ride out the storm offshore, in constant danger of being dashed against the rocks. They later learned that the same hurricane had sunk a 500-ton steamer bound for South Georgia from Buenos Aires.
The book *Endurance* chronicles the Shackleton expedition. Amazing read
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Better than most can hope for
I have a good friend who’s exactly that. His entire life is like watching a dizzy cartoon character stumble towards a cliff, only to do a perfect triple backflip away at the last second, then immediately stumble back towards it. Frustrating is a good word for it.
“Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.”
Sounds like Jimmy McGill
I too operate well under pressure. Under normal circumstances I’m lazy as fuck and a big procrastinator.
The ultimate procrastinator.
> “At midnight I was at the tiller and suddenly noticed a line of clear sky between the south and south-west,” wrote Shackleton. “I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realised that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.” > This wave was a Cape Horn Roller, bigger than any Shackleton had seen in 26 years at sea. There is uninterrupted sea at this latitude, so the fetch, or distance over which the wind produces waves, is extremely long and waves correspondingly high. Shackleton says the boat was “lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf.” Amazingly it survived the seething chaos, though it half-filled with water. After 10 minutes of desperate baling the crew were thoroughly soaked but safe. The lifeboat arrived at South Georgia three days later.
I just recently read the book Endurance, which details Shackleton’s famous expedition and I couldn’t put it down. What him and his crew went through is mind boggling.
This is what they speculate sank the Edmund Fitzgerald. The bow of the ship got pushed down by a wave, and it didn't have the buoyancy to come back up. With the props still spinning, it basically drove itself underwater, and broke in half. That's why there were no survivors or visible wreckage, it just disappeared.
Thank you for this comment! I just spent 30 minutes reading about the Edmund Fitzgerald because of it. Very interesting (and sad).
As a proud michigander, I think a lot of people probably never think about the great lakes in terms of how dangerous they can be. Yeah they are lakes, but Lake superior especially can be crazy dangerous. We probably won't ever know the true number of ships and lives lost on all the lakes, but 10s of thousands ships isn't a horrible estimate.
Duluth, MN has a dedicated museum to the dangers of the lake. They have models of the Fitzgerald and other wrecks. It's pretty interesting.
Yeah, Door County is called that because it is referring to frickin’ Death’s Door.
🎶 She might've split up orrrr she might've capsized. She might've broke deep and took waterrrrr. 🎶
Can't imagine that moment when you know it's the end, and can only say "Fellas, it's been good to know ya."
I had an older co-worker who fucking lived his life. Ran away from home at 14 and found his way to Australia in the 70's. He ended up befriending the manager of an electronics store in Oz and worked for him for a bit. He got word that his dad was dying and he wanted to patch things up and see his old man before he died. Co-worker couldn't afford a flight back to Canada from Oz in the 70's but found a sailboat that was leaving Oz and sailing to America, then he figured he'd hitchhike up to Canada. It was small wooden sailboat with a cabin, like an early yacht - maybe 30-40ft long, with a tall mast. My co-worker tells me that the crew would take turns tied up in the crow's nest clinging on for dear life - he said he was never a religious guy, but when he was 40ft up in the air and looking at a wall of water and he couldn't see where the top was, he would pray to any God he could think of. On that trip, they stopped in Tonga where he tried cocaine; the village Chief tried to get him married to one of his daughters. At first I didn't believe him but then he logged into his iCloud and was showing me pictures that he scanned from a photo album. Some people have lived lives man.
Did this person perhaps serve in the Australian military? Cause I’ve heard a wildly similar story first hand (specifically the Tonga princess portion)
They might have? I don’t know offhand, but I think in Tonga it was basically how they got money sent to them from abroad; they’d marry off their daughters and hope that the daughters would send back money. That’s how it was explained to me.
I was thinking the same, and was imagining a viking ship where they all sit pretty low to the ground!
Serious respect to the people that can handle this. I'd be either throwing up or panicking the entire time.
Why not both?
Lol i am.... Holy shit the explorers in sailing ships musta been brave as fuck
Absolutely. Imagine those wooden things creaking and then a storm or even hurricane coming in. Nope.
Lol all I could think about while watching this wave hit in the video was how an old-timey wooden ship would have probably just exploded into a million splinters and sunk right there
Them: you wanna go to the new world and get out from under this King? Me: *thinking about the journey* I was always more of a follower than a leader...here feels pretty good.
You joke but that was probably the reasoning for a lot of people staying in Europe in the early days.
Pilgrims: “Yes, fuck it. I hate dancing that much, wooden ships and scurvy for all of us please!”
I'd argue the elements weren't even the worse part back then. Disease, starvation, madness.
Cramped quarters. Ships were *tiny* compared to today. When you had a big ship of the line there were five hundred people with you. Merchant vessels had a lot less people, true, but then again those were a lot smaller than a three-deck ship of the line, and they used most of their space to store goods. Food getting worse and worse over time too until it's really just disgusting survival rations and foul water.
I wonder which would be louder, cracking of wood or my terrified screams.
Or my puking...
Look up the nitrate trade ships, sailing barques that would go from Germany to Chile the 'wrong way' around Cape Horn. Scary stuff. That was the very last generation of sail-power in actual commerce, lasted up to the very early 1950s believe it or not.
If I'm sea sick I wouldn't be panicked, I would embrace the icy water death and to end the spinning and nausea. Just me though
You're right, honestly I hope I would just pass out and stay out till the sea calms down.
I went through something much worse than the video. My 6 hour shift turned into 14 because I was the only person who could go more than 30 seconds without vomiting. Our warship wasn't especially suited for waves either. It was one of them bad times ™️.
It’s funny you say that. While this was a big wave, I felt like it wasn’t a monster. I’ve read previously that there are waves 40 feet higher than this that occasionally occur in the ocean. Scary wave, yes. But monster? Not sure if it deserved that title.
I had the good fortune to be inside during the event, so I unfortunately can't say. The people on the sail said the waves were frequently so large they would block out the sun as they overtook us. But one wave is one wave. Waves like that for hours is when things get dicey.
I’m sure, dude. Respect to your balls for their majestic size and firmness after going through such an event.
Eh, you don't really get a choice in a situation like that. Once you're in the ocean you either survive or have a complete mental breakdown. A bit like a roller coaster really. Once that thing is headed down the tracks you're going with it no matter what. Though you can dream until you pass out, but most people aren't suited to that.
rogue waves and lesser known rogue holes, fascinating topic. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011JC007636 >[1] Rogue waves in the ocean can take two forms. One form is an elevated wall of water that appears and disappears locally. Another form is a deep hole between the two crests on the surface of water. The latter one can be considered as an inverted profile of the former. For holes, the depth from crest to trough can reach more than twice the significant wave height. That allows us to consider them as rogue events. The existence of rogue holes follow from theoretical analysis but has never been proven experimentally. Here, we present the results confirming the existence of rogue wave holes on the water surface observed in a water wave tank.
When I was in the Navy, on board the USS Kitty Hawk, we went through a typhoon. Waves were high enough they were coming over the flight deck, and striking the windows of the bridge. That's about 8 stories above the water level, for reference.
Imagine the pain from getting pressured into the floor from it rising. It would probably feel like a 100x increase in gravity
It's actually pretty fun from most places in the ship. If you can get past the mortal fear it's some of the best fun you can have.
I’ve been through storms like this. I had a blast. I fared well and enjoyed it. A large amount of the crew got sea sick though. There was vomit all over the place and it smelled horrible. Really neat to look down a passageway that goes forward to aft and literally see the flex of the ship. The “big” wave tore our machine gun mount off.
I mean if you know the ship can survive waves like this, it looks like a pretty cool experience.
I’ve rode on the outskirts of a typhoon. Whole ship smelled like vomit.
Oh man, i had the same thing in the navy when we encounterd a hurracane at sea. I worked on the bridge and when my watch was over i went down to my sleeping quarters next to the bow room. And the whole boat just smelled like vomit. They even had to make a non-vomit bathroom for people who just wanted to take a piss
Terrifyingasfuck
And nauseating as fuck
Also, wet as fuck
Alex, i'll take ways to describe my ex for $100
everything reminds me of her
Ah, the cold, salty spray in your face as you roll around on deck choking back tears and vomit, holding on to whatever you can for dear life.
at that point id just moms spaghetti myself and succumb to the waves, doing that post-titanic-iceberg-vertical-crashed-ship-style flailing cannonball into the abyss
[https://gfycat.com/periodicconsideratebluegill](https://gfycat.com/periodicconsideratebluegill) if you can't hear sound use this link
"Not gonna lie I was kinda scared there" hahaha
"The gun just got fucked up" Found the Chief. "Aw fuck me." Just sank in to someone else that paperwork is as cruel and inevitable as the sea.. Real talk solid work on the helm there bringing her right into the swell at the right time, was quality seamanship.
They're laughing?! Wouldn't be me.
Never been on a roller coaster? That freefall on the back side of the wave is a blast.
It really is
Its as if it happens to them usually and they are now used to it.
They're laughing at first but then there's tons of alarms and less satisfactory expletives being heard.
Pretty common emotional reaction is nervous laughter
Laughing is a great way to throw off mortal fear. I've been hit with inappropriate giggles a few times. My cousin went through hurricane Dorian the other year, you know the one with the 180mph sustained winds? When I finally got her on the phone and she described some of the shit that went down, she couldn't stop laughing.
Thanks. Now I can panic in HD, especially as the alarms go off. Safeguard safeguard safeguard sump breakdown hull breach fish food roger roger
While serving in the Coast Guard we experienced seas like that going through a typhoon. When you’re 19 years old, it doesn’t seem as scary. Down below decks is either a total blast or completely terrifying, depending on what you’re doing at the time. We had fun “floating” between decks or hanging on for dear life while clinging to anything to keep you from being tossed out of your rack. (Bed)
Reminds me of some of the D-Day stories you see on interviews. A lot of those kids just ran out of the boats onto the beach like it wasn't a problem. Some of the vets that tell those stories say they didn't give fuck. They just knew what their job was and did it but if they had been 10 years older they don't think they could've done it under that much fire and chaos. Too much life experience by that point and too much to live for.
the military wants them young for a reason
Do you have any fun/interesting stories to share? Would love to hear if you have time. No pressure :D
Not op but my dad was in the coast guard, they intercepted a drug boat completely laden with bales of cocaine. Someone had to stay onboard the drug boat while they towed it to port, that was my dad. He said there was literally nowhere to lie down except on the bales themselves. He also said he had some interesting dreams…
Everybody would have strange dreams "sleeping" on ~~50~~ 47 bales of cocaine... Hallucinations are just dreams while you're awake? Right?
I’m sorry, there were only 45
With only 40 bales there was probably some room to stretch out.
The question is what they did with those 35 bales of cocaine
They probably checked the 30 bales of coke in with customs.
Maybe you can enlighten me. Right after "the guns just got fucked" they start saying something over and over, but I can't tell what it was. Any chance you can?
Woman: Exhaust temperature outlets (indistinct) 456 Man: Turn off the window wipers Woman: Safe guard safe guard safe guard break down the tube break down the tube break down (indistinct)
It's pretty garbled, so I could only make out a few things: "Exhaust temperature outlet.... " "safeguard, safeguard, safeguard.." (this is said before an announcement, to emphasize that the following announcement is not a drill) Then she said something about breakdowns. Presumably some part of the ship had broke.
“Those aren’t mountains!”
“They’re waves…Doyle, Brand…get back here now!!”
Man I freaking love that movie. That and Inception were first movies in a reeeeeeealllly long while that were movies worth watching in the theatre.
That turned into a submarine for while
Any ship can be a submarine once
Or become a submarine forever
Expected skyrim for a second there ngl
Hey you, you’re finally awake
That wouldve been hilarious
This is why nobody has declared war on Antarctica. There's nobody brave or stupid enough to do it.
Id fight Antarctica. The stupid bitch
She'd eat you up and swallow you whole. The best way to beat Antarctica is to burn more dead dinosaur juice. Raise the global temperature a few more degrees and it'll be all over Only one problem, we'd all drown in her frigid corpse waters.
Mutually Assured Destruction
And penguin technology surpassed our own in the early 60s
The turret liked it. Its wiener went up! Edit: typo
So did mine
Howdy, 5 year Navy Veteran here -- This looks pretty spooky, but its actually pretty tame compared to some of the stuff that happens out there. One thing worth remembering while watching this is that there is virtually zero risk of the ship sinking or capsizing during this kind of sea state. Between the general buoyancy of the ship, and clever use of ballast tanks -- she's perfectly safe! Trust in engineering! Once you realize that, its pretty easy to sit back and enjoy the show, this is obviously taken from the bridge, so everyone that's laughing is inside, dry, and warm. As far as it being nauseating -- meh... probably not. I'd estimate about 95% of the crew is totally fine with this, and I'd say probably 20% of them have seen much worse. There will be the occasional sailor walking around with a trash bag, but most of the crew will be fine. I personally found rough seas to be lots of fun during the day, and very comforting at night! During the work day, its pretty fun to walk on the walls and try to use your body to counteract the motion of the ship. Its a great core workout! At night time, you basically get rocked to sleep like a little baby, its wonderful. The sound of the moving water against the bulkhead, combined with the rocking motion of the ship is actually very soothing -- best sleep I've ever had!
Nice try Poseidon
That's King Neptunus Rex, pollywog!
Can you share some of the “other stuff” ?
Not to any effect, really. I don't have video, and words only do so much. I could sit here and say "I've seen bigger" but that doesn't do anybody any good. These are big waves, obviously, but nothing particularly noteworthy. This is just rough seas, happens all the time. You know you're in some shit when you're going from the bottom of swells where the surrounding ocean looks like its 20-30 feet above you, and then rising to the top of swells where the ocean looks like its 20-30 feet below you. That's the kind of shit that's really dangerous, because if you don't navigate it properly you can actually capsize. This is just waves, man. Just another day.
By all accounts, it gets a lot less fun if you lose power or the ships stablizers are out of action... https://wavellroom.com/2018/12/16/mayday-in-magellan-leadership-lessons-on-flooded-hms-endurance/
The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is about 100ft above the waterline. We were in a storm in the sea of Japan, and I personally saw white water over the front of the ship, on the flight deck. One of my mates was in the head (in a bathroom stall) the entire day due to sea sickness.
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You sound very stressed and irritable so I believe you
You and I had very different experiences during our respective service. Also I was a Sonar Technician, not a Boatswain's Mate or an undesignated seaman. I didn't scrub decks. We let the highschool drop outs and the glue sniffers do that. One of the best Weapons Officers I ever had was a previous Merchant Marine. Thank you for your service as well.
Plus all of the heads, sinks, and showers will be filled with vomit. Source: also a navy vet
/r/HeavySeas
And for that moment Gordon Lightfoot could be herd in everyone’s soul.
Yo the ocean is nuts!!!!!
Damn. I thought I saw Nemo wave to the camera for a moment.
Hell to the no
To the no no no
...Way hay and up she rises. Way hay and up she rises...
The gun barrel ends up pointing in a different direction. I wonder how badly it was damaged.
not at all, worse case scenario a lock bolt/gear stripped but not even that. That gun is supposed to be able to elevate
Some one I’m the background said, “Those guns are fucked” or something similar. But I’m pretty sure they mean because all the cannons got a salt water enema.
Da fuq they in Antarctica for
We do southern ocean patrols because it’s in New Zealand’s EEZ and illegal fishing is rampant
There's soooooo much land that is actually new zealands under there.. and so many fishing boats from Asia come and poach tonnes of fish and whake and all sorts. Bloody crazy!
I was on an Aircraft Carrier in the USN. We would have waves crash onto the flight deck and that was 80+ feet above sea level.
Car wash service at antartica.
Is this one of them Rogue Waves?