Whether it is called "Draupner wave", named after the Norwegian oil platform it hit, or "New Year's wave" in reference to its passage on 1 January 1995, this villainous wave remains one of the best known in the world.
It must be said that with its 25.6 meters high, it is one of the largest waves ever recorded, and it was not likely to go unnoticed...
The villainous waves are those extremely high and steep waves that seem well hidden in the middle of a classic looking swell train. The relatively rare phenomenon is now well documented, but it is not yet fully explained.
On the side of the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, we thought that this would be an interesting subject for study, and scientists tried to reproduce the Draupner wave in a basin 25m in diameter.
For English-speaking scientists, the entirety of their study can be consulted here, but it is worth remembering that it is by crossing two swells at an angle of 120° that they succeeded in recreating a scoundrel wave of excessive height.
Although no applications are planned for wave pools, researchers hope to be better able to predict these phenomena, which are still unknown in the future.
This gives you a little more time to prepare when you are on a boat or platform in the open sea...
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