Surviving a Super Storm at Sea


Photo: Karsten Petersen

On October 1977, the good ship "Stolt Surf," a chemical tanker, left Singapore on a routine voyage across the Pacific Ocean.

The ship was advised by a weather routing agency to keep far to the north, to avoid a storm further south. The captain said that going north at this time of the year was contrary to his sailor experience, but the weather agency had all sorts of satellites and computers and whatnot. And so the Stolt Surf went north against his instinct and years of experience.

A big mistake:

During the storm, it soon became clear, that this one was NOT one of the usual storms with "only" 10 meter waves! No,- on the "Stolt Surf" we experienced to our astonishment, that when the big waves came crashing towards us, we had to look UP in order to see the top of the waves! And that was from the bridge deck, which is already 22 meters above sea level! 22 meters!!! And still you had to look UP!!! Crazy!

Link - Thanks Christophe!


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Newest 5 Comments

very good experience,i have seen before,in my own trip from singapore to shang hai,the wave is 45feet (+/- 12 meter) but its not to make scared to sailing again,by the way this is my phone number

+62 81 330 599 989
diecky
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Nice Picture, I've used it on my blog for my poem "The Sea" I was out in the North Atlantic in 78 for 21 days in 21 to 24 foot seas dodging storms all around us, our superstructure cracked and I became the master helmsman for special evolutions. We made 4 attempts at taking on fuel and decided to give it up and go to the straights to fuel before we ran out, thank goodness. After that, I always loved the ocean and never could understand why.
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