This taken from today's report on Bonnie. AT 0300 UTC AUG 27 HURRICANE BONNIE 34.2N 77.7W NEARLY STATIONARY. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS 85 KT GUSTING TO 105 KT. HURRICANE FORCE WINDS OR HIGHER WITHIN 100 NM NE...75 NM SE...50 NM SW...50 NM NW QUADRANTS. TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS OR HIGHER WITHIN 175 NM NE...200 NM SE...100 NM SW...75 NM NW QUADRANTS. SEAS 12 FT OR GREATER etc. etc. If it takes a hurricane operating over the open Atlantic to produce those 12 fit or greater waves then what kind of storm produced those 15 foot swells this guy was paddling in? According to the Institute of Oceanographic Sciences it takes a wind of 35 knots blowing over a fetch of about 600 nautical miles blowing for more than six hours to produce a 15 foot wave. Since swells diminish in height with time those must have been biggies when they were formed. People over estimate waves because of the angles at which they view them. When you are looking down into a wave it always looks huge. When you write about them they get even bigger (something to do with distance from the wave). The rule is to never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Anyone remember those six foot waves the power boats made in Georgian Bay? Cheers, John Winters Redwing Designs Specialists in Human Powered Watercraft http://home.ican.net/~735769/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Aug 27 1998 - 03:52:19 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:29:59 PDT