I came across this Russian video while searching for something else. It conveys, as few other videos have in my experience, the raw power of the sea when Mother Nature gets her dander up. I recommend watching it in full-screen mode.
It brought back lots of memories of my time in ships and small craft off the Cape of Good Hope and around the southern coast of Africa, where the Agulhas Current makes the area the so-called 'Home of the Rogue Wave'. (The first explorer to round the Cape, Bartolomeu Dias, named it the 'Cape Of Storms', with good reason. The King of Portugal decided that was bad public relations, so he renamed it the 'Cape Of Good Hope'. On a calm day it's absolutely beautiful - in 1580 Sir Francis Drake called it 'the fairest Cape in all the world', and in good weather I won't disagree with him. On a rough day, though . . . )
Peter
From the 1892 Book Of Common Prayer:
ReplyDeleteO MOST glorious and gracious Lord God, who dwellest in heaven, but beholdest all things below; Look down, we beseech thee, and hear us, calling out of the depth of misery, and out of the jaws of this death, which is now ready to swallow us up: Save, Lord, or else we perish. The living, the living shall praise thee. O send thy word of command to rebuke the raging winds and the roaring sea; that we, being delivered from this distress, may live to serve thee, and to glorify thy Name all the days of our life. Hear, Lord, and save us, for the infinite merits of our blessed Saviour, thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
We used to drive to the coast to watch the storms on the Gulf Of Maine when I was a kid. We didn't realize just how mane men die in this sort of thing.
You couldn't pay be all the Gold in Ft. Knox to go out on a ship in that.
I served aboard U.S. Navy ammunition ship caught in a typhoon in the late 50's. We had green (i.e. not spray) water on the O-3 deck which is about 30 feet higher than the main deck which is 20 feet above the water line. We also rolled to the turtle (i.e. not able to right itself) angle. We hung there until another wave righted us.
ReplyDeletelike anon 9:13,
ReplyDeleteBTDT saw green water hit the flight deck on the USS coral sea. while we were taking it on the bridge windows. that is fairly high up on a spruecan.
rms/pa
I remember reading about the hunting of the Bismark in WW II. The British carrier Ark Royal headed up out of the Med to help out. She was launching Swordfish torpedo plains, biplanes, between the green water coming over the bow onto her flight deck. They all made it back, too, except for the flight that found the Bismark. Balls of steel, no doubt.
ReplyDeleteMy 40 years in the merchant marine ( and still going) does not make me less impressed by that awesome video you posted. A very angry sea there.
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