Watch Out For Rouge Waves! [CH 1]

Legend tells of waves the size of a "10-story building" that can appear "without warning" in the middle of the ocean. They can resist "prevailing current and wave direction" or appear on a perfectly clear day. The trough of the wave--that is, the dip before and after--is a "hole in the sea." Rogue waves can exert up to "980 kPa (142 psi)" as the water breaks on the deck and hull. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave).

Is the ocean safe? A rogue wave capsizes the ship in the movie Poseidon (2006), forcing passengers to climb through the hull of ship and escape. Although movies are exaggerated, many ships have been capsized and broken by the extreme, crushing pressure of the sinister wave. The European Space Agency (ESA) used their satellites to spot 10 humongous wave and each was over "25m (81ft)" tall. They estimate that in the last twenty years over "200 cargo ships" have sank. Wolfgang Rosenthal, of the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht, Germany estimates that at least "two" large vessels "every week on average" have been lost, but, because the reason is not investigated as thoroughly as airplane crashes, most losses are attributed to "bad weather" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3917539.stm).