RMS Queen Mary, decks full of troops, during World War II.
Although cruise lines do their best to make passengers perfectly safe, they don’t always succeed. Every once in a while, a rogue wave will hit a cruise ship — not often, but once is enough if you’re on the ship. A Holland America ship, the Prinsendam, did get clobbered by a rogue on its way to Antarctica a few years ago. It was tipped far onto its side, but it recovered with the loss only of every bit of breakable glass or pottery on the ship. (Betty Anne and I sailed in the Prinsendam, to the Baltic, a few cruises later, but by then they had restored it to its proper immaculate shape.)
There is one ocean liner, though, that most of us have seen and that had an even worse experience. That is the RMS — anyway the former RMS, now simply Hotel — Queen Mary. Although it is now immune to rogue waves, since it is now “afloat” on several thousand tons of concrete poured in the bay off Long Beach, California, it had its bad time.
Since it has become a hotel, it has been visited by several thousand times as many people as ever set foot on it as a trans-Atlantic liner. It has even occasionally been the site for a science fiction con.
It was not always thus. During World War II, the Queen was pressed into serving as the best troop transport the Allies owned — big enough to carry mass troops anywhere on the globe, fast enough to fear little from the German U-boats.
But not quite safe from rogue waves. In 1942, the Queen was ferrying American troops to Scotland as part of the build-up for D-Day. It hit a patch of bad weather some 760 miles from land, which quickly became even worse weather. A giant wave, estimated at 92 feet tall, turned the ship on one side. It took several minutes for it to recover, and at the worst it had been knocked over to a 52-degree tilt.
This does not sound like fun for anybody, but how do you suppose it was for the 14,000 American troops in the windowless, very nearly exitless, six or seven cots tall troop quarters below?
Chookie says:
Bet a few of them needed to change their underwear.
January 14, 2010, 12:41 amsm says:
Quite a story, thanks!
January 14, 2010, 7:58 amJeff says:
I\’ve seen photos of the Prinsendam, post-wave. It was a mess.
January 14, 2010, 12:28 pmRalan says:
For folks who go in for that kind of thing, the QM is one of the most haunted places on Earth. Wonder what the ghosts thought. Great story. Glad I found this blog.
January 15, 2010, 3:18 amRobert Nowall says:
It’s a tribute to its designers and builders.
January 17, 2010, 8:34 amTeri says:
Mr. Pohl,
I don’t have a particular comment about this story, although I enjoyed it. Just wanted to let you know I appreciate your blog!
January 21, 2010, 2:25 pmIronmistress says:
The freak waves are nasty things. They may rise up to 30 m high, and they often come in threes. While they are rarities - many seafarers never encounter one during their whole career - they can sink even a large ship or damage it seriously.
Freak waves usually occur where the oceanic currents run against the prevailing winds (such as Agulhas current at westerlies’ zone at the south point of Africa), or where the form of seabed changes rapidly, such as Bay of Biscay, undersea mountains or plateaus, or Atlantic central ridge.
For a long time the freak waves were considered as tall tales or seaman stories, but there were enough indices they were real. The first recorded freak wave was the Draupner wave New Year’s day 1995, which hit an offshore platform - and was estimated to be up to 30 m high.
The freak waves are said to be extremely steep - like “a moving wall of water” and preceeded by a ravine-like trough - “like a hole in the water”. It is estimated the freak wave gathers kinetic energy from nearby waves, calming them down while accumulating size on itself.
Freak waves are not the same as tsunami. A tsunami is almost undetectable at sea - they seldom rise higher than one metre at high seas. They only gain momentum - and height - near the shore, and they may rise to 30+ m high.
The freak waves can also occur at Great Lakes - it has been suspected that one sank the ore boat Edmund Fitzgerald.
January 24, 2010, 4:44 pmMarc says:
I’ve developed a very bad habit over the years (probably due to the technical/diagnostic/prioritisation aspects of my job) of only scanning through written material (blogs, emails, manuals etc). The upshot of this is, I typically only pickup key information and ignore what I deem to be superfluous data at that time. This blog entry was no exception…. somewhere in the depths of my mind the key words Holland America, Frederik Pohl and interesting facts stuck (proving the system works). Having just confirmed a cruise (my first) on the Prinsendam for June next year, I’ve now re-read the blog in more detail.
I’ll be sure to keep a watchful eye out for rouge waves, flying crockery and changes in the position of the ceiling.
Thank you for a great blog entry Fred.
July 28, 2010, 7:52 am