Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1920 — MISTAKES ABOUT SEA WAVES [ARTICLE]

MISTAKES ABOUT SEA WAVES

Really They Are Not Nearly as High as Some Voyagers Have Asserted. Voyagers on stormy seas come safely ashore and tell their friends of waves that rose mountains high and at times threatened to overwhelm the vessel on which they braved the deep. The untrained eyes of the amateur seafarer generally exaggerate the height of the waves, and when the statement is made that the water rose at least 100 feet above the vessel It Is seldom that ...any of the auditors can disprove it. Exhaustive observations made by scientists give the maximum height attained by waves at not more than sixty feet, and then only when the wind has been of hurricane force. The average height of waves in a strong gale is about thirty feet, in a whole gale about thirty-seven feet, and in a storm about forty-five feet The scientists further state that if waves travel as fast as the average velocity of the strongest winds and if there be swifter waves produced directly or Indirectly by action of the wind upon the sea they do not attain sufficient height to form noticeable breakers.