Draupner Wave Proved Rogue Waves

The first definitive digital measurement to convince scientists that rogue waves were real came in 1995, although French scientist and naval officer Jules Dumont d'Urville had reported one of the earliest famous encounters in 1826. He and three witnesses saw Indian Ocean waves they estimated at 33 meters (108 feet), but fellow scientist Francois Arago publicly ridiculed them because experts then believed waves could not exceed 9 meters (30 feet). A North Sea platform recorded earlier scientific evidence in 1984, but the 25.6-meter (84-foot) Draupner wave on January 1, 1995, provided the decisive digital record. One explanation for the scarcity of earlier reports is that ships struck by waves approaching 30 meters (100 feet) rarely survived before the development of steel double hulls.

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