How Scientists Recreated a Monster Wave that Looks Like Hokusai’s Famous Image

The 2004 tsunami that obliterated the coastlines of South East Asian countries, crossing oceans at the speed of an airliner, is something most mariners would hope never to encounter. Nor freak or rogue waves which have long been a common occurrence but until relatively recently have remained anecdotal. That is, until 1 January 1995, when a huge wave was observed – and recorded – at the Draupner Oil platform in the North Sea. It was one of the first reliable measurements of a freak wave in the ocean and at a height of 25.6 metres, it was over two times the height of the waves that surrounded it.