Rogue Wave Explained

Thursday 14 October 2010 We have had some light thrown on the strange glitch that appeared in the CSIR Waverider buoy off Cape Point earlier this week, when a sudden spike appeared in the data, which looked suspiciously like a rogue wave, although guys surfing at around noon on Monday, when the surf was pretty big at 20 feet or so, certainly did not report a massive wave of any kind. Clarification came from Pieter Truter from the CSIR yesterday, who told Wavescape: "It was not a rogue wave. At about 12:00 on Monday the 11th of October 2010 the waverider bouy was hit by something, most likely a ship, and broke free. The bouy was recovered the same day and should be back in the water by the end of next week." The information explains the totally bizarre jump to a pulse measuring around 100 feet at 25 seconds, which of course would make this one of the strangest rogue waves ever recorded by science.