There are rough waters out there on the high seas. And then there’s a Royal New Zealand Navy warship getting absolutely swallowed by the Southern Ocean.
Old footage is making the rounds again, showing a patrol vessel heading directly into mountainous seas near Antarctica. Filmed from the bridge, the clip begins with the bow rising and falling through violent whitewater. Then a much larger wall looms ahead. The ship plunges into a trough, the wave detonates over its bow, and the windows briefly disappear behind an avalanche of water.
It’s an oldie, but a (terrifying) goodie. Check it out below.
Somehow, the vessel keeps going. And somehow, the video has amassed nearly 26 million views on one YouTube upload alone.
The ship is identified as HMNZS Otago, an 85-meter (279-foot) Royal New Zealand Navy offshore patrol vessel used for surveillance, fisheries enforcement and search-and-rescue operations. The footage circulated as early as 2015, and was reported on extensively in 2016.
Video distributor Licet Studios describes “20m swells with 80KMph winds”—roughly 65-foot seas and 50-mph gusts. But that’s a reported estimate, not an independently verified measurement of the particular wave that slammed the ship.
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As the sea engulfs the bow, a crew member can be heard in the background simply uttering, “Holy sh*t”—a perfectly appropriate response to facing a 20-meter (65-foot) wall of water.
The location is the Southern Ocean, where powerful westerly winds can circle Antarctica with little land to interrupt their path.
As New Zealand Defence Force scientist Peter McComb explained, “The Southern Ocean is characteristically different.” With no landmasses blocking the wind, storms can build extraordinary seas.
Does that make this a rogue wave?
Not necessarily. NOAA describes rogue waves as more than twice the size of surrounding waves, sometimes resembling “walls of water.” Without measurements of the storm’s significant wave height, the wave in this clip can’t be scientifically classified as rogue.
The most famous confirmed example remains the Draupner Wave, measured at 84 feet in the North Sea in 1995. It helped convince scientists that such monsters weren’t just sailors’ folklore.
Whatever label you give this Antarctic encounter, one thing is obvious: even a military ship can look frighteningly small out there.
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