World: Highest Significant Wave Height as measured by Ship Observation

References

Holliday, N.P., Yelland, M.J., Pascal, R., Swail, V.R., Taylor, P.K., Griffiths, C.R. and Kent, E. (2006) Were extreme waves in the Rockall trough the largest ever recorded? Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L05613

Discussion

Note that this is "significant" wave height -- in essence, what an observer would have seen if he/she averaged over 15-20 waves passing by the ship -- that is a much better thing than "rogue waves" which really cannot be accurately measured. According to one of our of panel's "wave experts": "There have been many more less reliable estimates of rogue waves from other platforms, and from satellite SAR. These are generally unverifiable, since there is no ground truth for the satellite, and the others tend to be from pitching and rolling platforms such as ships, and estimates are often based on damage to the superstructure, which may not have been level at the time." Instrumentation: Shipborne Wave Recorder MkIV (SBWR), Instrument calibrated in September 2000 and found to be accurate with ±1%. Record was evaluated by the committee of T. Peterson, P. Bessemoulin, A. Hines, V. Swail, J-M. Lefevre and R. Cerveny.