Monster waves have been on the rise

By Tony Chamberlain, Globe Staff | June 30, 2006

Call anything rogue or monster and it immediately assumes a thrilling unreality found in science-fiction and horror tales. And yet, as we roll into summer and another hurricane season, the talk of rogue and monster ocean waves has been gaining, with scientific researchers in England and Germany recently publishing evidence that these waves might be much larger and more frequent than previously thought.

Technically, a rogue wave occurs when strong wind charges the ocean with its energy. And some rogues seem to derive energy from the depths of the ocean. Inshore boaters would seem immune from such nightmarish conditions.

But on June 7 off Harwichport, a 34-foot fishing boat, Chamy, called the Coast Guard because a rogue slammed into it so hard that its pump system was disabled, and Chamy was taking on water. Since the fishing boat was only about 10 miles from land, the rescue was not difficult, where 100 miles offshore the story might have had a different ending.

Then there was the case last August of a fishing boat near Nomans Island (off the southwest corner of Martha's Vineyard) on a day described as moderately inclement with winds between 10-15 knots out of the south. There was a small-craft advisory, but those conditions rarely keep boats from going out.

Scott Terry, a 52-year-old commercial fisherman from Martha's Vineyard and his teenage mate, Mitchell Pachico, left the dock before dawn on a 24-foot twin-outboard fishing boat. As they made their way from Gay Head toward Nomans -- a former Naval bombing target about 3 miles off Martha's Vineyard -- Terry said a ``good swell" began to run, but nothing severe. A lobsterman pulling his traps in the area, says Terry, who added that while he goes to the best fishing grounds possible, he would never test himself, his crew or his boat with conditions he considers dangerous.

Terry and Pachico were bouncing live eels off the bottom to entice striped bass, when, out of nowhere, a wall of water 15-20 feet high rolled into them, lifting the boat to the top just as the wave crested, flipping the boat. Though not a rogue because of its location, the wave did conform to one rogue characteristic: It was more than twice the height of any of the other waves.

Terry and Pacheco saved themselves by clinging to the bottom of the boat as long as they could, then making it safely onto the rocky shore of Nomans, where the Coast Guard picked them up in a helicopter. Luck and clear thinking helped save them, but if the incident occurred farther offshore, the outcome might well have been different.

Some people believe the sudden upheaval of water might have been created by the meeting of a coastal riptide and a large, incoming swell.

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