No contest about whether it was real or scary. Absolutely yes.
That said, I am not sure what it had to do with the original post. You were in a boat under power, and BTW you made a lot of assumptions about what people have handled in a kayak that may not stand up if you look at sea kayaking in the North Sea off of the UK. Our typical day of 4-6 feet here is usually 8 plus there re, and so on.
As to how big seas can get, that's easily found by looking up historical buoy readings which davejj could do for himself. Not sure why this is happening here.
Comment on height of seas at a distance from land where people most likely would be in a kayak - one of the reasons that the BCU 5 star has traditionally been hard to run in the US is that you need two days of wave heights near or at 8 feet. Unless it is scheduled in October/November when storms can be counted on, a lot of these assessments have been cancelled due to lack of those conditions. So far the northeast, well up in Maine, and the Pacific northwest have been the areas that were most likely to deliver the conditions.
Um - have you gotten a paddle boat yet? My recall is that you were just thinking of getting into it.
The Kite Surfer As I said I’m just curious. In a big storm the big boats get tossed around so I was curious if it was known what would happen to a kayak. Also there was this story…
Fetch As stated above ( and in Steve’s post ) wave height is a function of 3 things - wind speed, wind duration, and fetch. Columbia River Gorge does not have enough fetch do build “fully developed” seas.
Beaufort scale deals with sea state representative of fully developed seas - open water, long enough duration, etc. It is usually not applicable for smaller enclosed bodies of water or estuaries, bays, etc. On lake Erie, 25-30kt winds will yield 6-8ft with ~4-5 s period. According to Beaufort, it should result in 13ft.
Drifting away from powerboats - do a search of Fastnet sailboat race in 1979, and Sydney-to-Hobart race of 1998. Their accounts are backed up by reasonable records and do deal with developed seas.
Sydney to Hobart Race Are you talking about the one that was written up in a book (“Fatal Storm” I think)? I thought it was 1996 but I may remember the year wrong. Fantastic story, though I’d love to read an equally detailed story about the rescuers in that one. It was amazing that the only loss of life was among the sailors, and that as low as it was.
If you haven’t read that book yet, grab it. Well written and the several photos include one of a sailboat near the crest of an 80 foot wave. It looks like a bathtub toy.
As I recall, after that year they required that all boats be self-righting.
My take FWIW Most experienced expedition paddlers have been hit by katabatic winds approaching 60 knots, and most have paddled in 40 knot blows. My friend and I just last year tested a couple of sea boats in a 50 knot blow off Vancouver Island. trees were toppling on shore, and my kayak blew down the beach over rocks 100ft. or more when I got out.
We did fine but had to aggressively reverse sweep etc. to turn up-wind. friend was an Olympic boater / coach! Made difficult progress through wind blown surf etc.
The problem at sea is fetch. In a true big storm with mega fetch the air is so full of water / spray it’s hard to breathe. Then it’s hard to discern the surface as it’s a bit of a vertigo sensation. Huge swell can crumble and send walls of foam at you and no matter how fit you are you are fighting for your butt and just trying to stay upright. One’s focus becomes laser sharp and time is forgotten as your too scared to think about being scared and too focused to take attention of the next wave, wall. All the while trying to find away to safety through scary boomers etc.
I’ve lived this more than once, and remember dragging my boat ashore on the NW coast of Vancouver Island after a fight for my life. Drysuit pant legs were full of sweat, mouth tasted like lead, and I was trembling… In reality these were 10 - 15 ft. seas and 30-40 knot winds. Double the seas and add another 10 knots and you wouldn’t likely be reading this post! (I know, too bad eh!)
Truth is, a big storm at sea with huge crumbling waves will probably kill the best paddlers. There’s only so much a human can take and I agree the limits are our skill and strength, which relative to Nature are pretty insignificant. Just look at some You Tube footage of over 500ft. ships at sea in storms!!
Life raft requirements were changed and much was learned about life raft behavior in huge seas.
Sailboats are by nature of design self righting, but masts, sails, lines in the water can prevent self righting.
Race boats as well tend to be light and there were some structural failures on Larry Ellison’s vessel, even though he was ahead of the worst of the storm and won the race. He was quoted as saying to his crew “People are going to die tonight out here”.
thank you , salty … … it’s good to hear someone who tells it like it is , the “real life” situation of being in bad water .
And what was the OP’s original post ??
Something about bad water (storm conditions) and paddling in them , the odds etc. …
I’m glad you made it , salty …
I especially appreciate the part about the instinctive deep focus on survival , that (hopefully) displaces the death grip of fear that should be there .
It is a key factor , that only one who has been through it could speak …
There were older boats in that race, almost historical, which were a hell of a lot less self-righting than some of the more modern ones like the boat featured in "Perfect Storm". That boat actually did survive the storm, though its masts etc were gone by the time it landed itself on a beach. The sailors here can speak to the issue of the sheets, but if there is any time at all and a good crew those will be reefed thus leaving the boat much less top-heavy.
The Fatal Storm book is somewhere in this house, but if I were to lay my hands on it I am pretty sure I'd read that the self-righting capacity of the sailboats themselves were toughened up after that race.
As to the life rafts, they appeared to be pretty comparable in design to the ones used when the "Pride of Baltimore" (the first one that didn't have a modern keel) sunk. While much of the issue with those Pride life rafts was a bad job of their being packed and refitted with valves etc, at least one of them also showed real weakness in the material/construction. I believe that occurred a few or several years earlier than the Sydney to Hobart race that went bad. If the specs on those were changed, it may have been based on several incidents. Also, one of the two rafts from the ship that lost the most crew members in the Hobart race did OK, both were exactly the same.
or… one could exercise some judgment and avoid these uber extreme life and death experiences all together. i guess there’s a lot of people on here who like running class 6 rapids too…
To pilotwingz, have you gotten yourself into a paddle boat yet? It'd be nice to have a sense of how you compare that to the power boat experience. And sounding like you are dissing people's likely experience in kayaks in this thread doesn't earn you credence unless you can show the kind of seat time that someone like Salty has.
As to the OPer question, as above the seas that davejj is likely to find in the near reaches of shore to Florida are not the massive seas that you describe in a power boat unless they haul out into a hurricane making landfall or similarly disregard the weather. Salty's experience in a kayak is I agree quite on point. But the extreme waves you both describe further out are most likely to have been experienced by the handful of people who have tried the really huge crossings like the Tasmanian Sea. Thus far, the successful attempts have been in boats that are only questionably kayaks, with enclosed spaces and tremendous self-righting ability.
In some parts of the geography it’s just a matter of time before you get spanked. Weather can change sooo fast and if paddling an exposed coast you can find yourself in danger.
Paddling such areas dictates that you accept those risks. Clearly we all balance risk and adventure / challenge.
Jon Turk is a new friend and someone I really enjoy. His book “In The Wake of the Jomon” is a superb read which I recommend because he explains this balance of risk, fear, adventure so well. I read his book and it was like reflashing many of my own internal conversations. Really hit me, as it wasn’t just another adventure book, but a very personal account of an adventurer and his psyche.
Nature is random and doesn’t “care”. You may cross an ocean in a raft of sorts, or get pummelled in an ice rated, self righting rescue vessel… People who know the sea understand this… There’s nothing more powerful than Nature and that is what’s so compelling and awesome.
Do a search on random rogue waves! Latest NASA/NOAA satelite data is amazing. We lose a container ship a week around the globe!!!
It's just that pilotwingz has yet to talk about his own time in a kayak but seems to imply that those who have more than earned respect like flatpick don't get risk. He (I assume) is responding to you, at least seems to think you "tell it like it is". But I'd bet if you didn't have the pilot status, you'd also be reading that you don't understand serious conditions.
yep been there and been caught out with unexpected conditions—given our weather here in Maine, it happens a lot. just part of the game and you are right its about balencing judgement, taking up a challenge and risk managment.
5 Star Venue is Sea State 5 "one of the reasons that the BCU 5 star has traditionally been hard to run in the US is that you need two days of wave heights near or at 8 feet"
There are other requirements as I read the venue requirements that cause issues as well. Actually Sea State 5 is winds 17-21 Kts (sounds low doesn’t it?) and waves of 4’ to 8’ or a tide race with similar conditions.
I suspect those conditions might actually be rather more common on the West Coast than the East Coast. Measured 8’ seas are seldom seen on the coastal GoMOS buoys and even 5’ seas are not common at all. Of course those are averages so its not like bigger waves are not lurking.
Yeah, it’s not just the wave height But that, from people I know who went to try and assess on the east coast a couple of times, was the factor that critically failed the remit.
Of course, with the new stuff you need considerable stretches of what would normally be considered non-landable shoreline, so most of the US shore south of Maine or the Pacific Northwest is probably a no go.