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Nick Gentle

European scientists have  confirmed that killer waves up to 30 metres high are far more  common than thought, prompting calls from shipbuilders for stronger designs

They're huge, massively strong and decidedly deadly, and there's nothing we can do to stop them.

These are the real sea monsters - ocean waves up to 30 metres high that can cripple or even sink ships in excess of 200 metres long.

And now that satellite technology has confirmed their existence, Hong Kong's shipowners are calling for ships to be made tougher.

Research announced last week by the European Space Agency and a German-led team of scientists has shown that these massive waves are even more common than had previously been thought.

'Until now it was only the mariners who have known that these large waves are out there,' said Hong Kong Shipowners' Association managing director Arthur Bowring.

Scientists used all-weather satellite radar imagery to spot the waves, the biggest of which occurred in the South Atlantic and was more than 25 metres high.

'It is very interesting now that we're seeing the research done by radar,' Mr Bowring said, 'because it will, I hope, help in justifying our calls, which we have been making for some years now, for ships to be made safer.'

Currently, ships are designed to withstand waves of up to 15 metres, but the study, which is still far from complete, suggests this may be far from adequate.

Senior scientist of the EU MaxWave Project, Wolfgang Rosenthal, of the GKSS Forschungszentrum  research centre in Geesthacht, Germany, said monster waves were a terrifying phenomenon.

'Usually you don't see them coming, you just capsize - perhaps you see a wall of water just before it hits you, but that is it.'

Aside from determining what caused the waves, there were likely to be some major implications for ship design flowing from the research, he said.

'If you consider that two ships per week are lost at the moment, that is too many. [In addition to stronger construction] I think black boxes will become necessary as they will record the sea state at the time of any accident.'

Gan Jianping,  of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said large waves recorded in the South China Sea were either typhoon-related or were what he termed 'soliton waves'.

'They are solitary, highly non-linear waves and their amplitudes can be much, much higher than normal waves,' Professor Gan said.

'They are very powerful. The solitons in the South China Sea can be huge and they can cause damage to the coastline or oil platforms.'

But it was not just the sheer volume of water that made solitons dangerous.

'The waves can also bring high levels of nitrate from deeper waters to the coast, where, we believe, it can contribute to the formation of red tides.'

He said the most common large waves experienced in the South China Sea originated in an area of water near the Luzon Strait, where water from the western Pacific sweeps in between the Philippines and Taiwan.

'When the current from the Pacific comes in it passes over a sea mount ... and crashes down the lee side, displacing a large amount of water on top. This generates a non-linear wave that then propagates westward.'

But Dr Rosenthal said it was too early to tell if solitons could be blamed for monster waves.

'There are different opinions on that,' he said.

'The soliton as such can be of any size, so the problem is knowing how it can grow to such a size that  it creates a monster wave.'

Professor Gan is also hoping to use his knowledge of solitons for another, more curious application.

'I believe solitons might help explain 'lake monsters', like those allegedly seen in Loch Ness and Lake Tianchi on the border of North Korea,' he said.



The rise of the monster wave