There are few things more unsettling at sea than watching the horizon suddenly disappear behind a wall of water.
Nathan and Lindsey, the couple behind popular boating channel The 71 Percent, experienced exactly that during their ambitious Pacific crossing. In dramatic footage from the voyage, their motor yacht encounters a wave they estimated at roughly 20 feet, violently knocking the vessel onto its side before it rights itself.
“Motor Yacht Knocked Flat by 20ft Wave,” the couple titled the episode, describing the encounter as a “Pacific Crossing Nightmare.” Their website now describes it similarly: “20ft Wave Nearly Rolled Our Motor Yacht.” Check out the scary scenes below:
The two are no strangers to adventure. Nathan and Lindsey left demanding careers—including work in motorsports—to become liveaboard cruisers documenting their travels. Their latest mission has taken them thousands of nautical miles across the Pacific aboard a Selene 49, traveling from Australia toward North America.
The footage is also a frightening reminder of just how unpredictable the open ocean can be.
“We got hit by the perfect time breaker, and so it rolled us up and then just broke and just knocked us over,” Nathan explained to their viewers. Highlighting the extreme severity of the terrifying tilt, he added: “There’s water in the engine room that came through the vents—like, that’s how much it knocked us over. I came over the side railing and down into the vents… all good though, she popped right back up.”
Related: The 100-Foot Rogue Wave That Changed Ocean Science Forever (Photo)
While The 71 Percent describes its encounter as a 20-foot wave rather than formally identifying it as a rogue wave, true rogue waves are very real.
NOAA defines them as unusually large, unexpected waves measuring more than twice the height of surrounding seas. They can seemingly materialize in open water, sometimes approaching from a different direction than the prevailing swell. Sailors historically described them as enormous “walls of water.”
For centuries, those stories were largely dismissed as maritime folklore. That changed dramatically on January 1, 1995, when instruments on Norway’s Draupner oil platform measured an extraordinary 84-foot wave amid seas roughly half that size—the first scientifically measured rogue wave of its kind.
Scientists now know several mechanisms can produce rogue waves, including interactions between different wave systems and ocean currents that focus wave energy. Predicting precisely where one will occur, however, remains difficult.
Nathan and Lindsey’s encounter wasn’t 84 feet.
But when you’re alone in the middle of the Pacific, 20 feet is plenty.
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