How do boats behave in big seas

Came across these couple of interesting videos.

Not often you can see how a boat really behaves in big seas but seeing this RC boat play around in the waves surprisingly little water comes over the bow!

My guess is scaling up these must be 20ft+ seas at times and try to imagine you find yourself in similar seas in your boat.


And here is a OMG moment in a wave tank testing a small yacht being struck by a rogue wave.


Anyway I built a couple of small RC boat as a kid, and would love to one day build a nice one and try this out for fun.

I get a pretty good idea when I watch Deadliest Catch. But being commercial, they frequently go out and stay out in sea states most pleasure boaters would avoid. Sometimes you can get caught, like the Columbia Bar or Morro Bay, and it is good to know what to do and how your boat behaves in waves over the bow or a following sea.
Interesting RC models though.

A better question is how does your first mate behave in big seas? [emoji848]

Your second photo shows why an ocean crossing vessel is $300% more costly than a lakes and bays boat.

A wave washing over the rail and smashing into the PH is a minor test..

The vessel being picked up by a wave and rolled 90 deg and then tossed is the real test.

Many many sailboats are built with offshore scantlings ,
power boaters seem to want to talk about a blue water boat ,
but few will pay the pri$e in ca$h or the on board compromises required to venture in the blue water.

Pgitug said:

A better question is how does your first mate behave in big seas? [emoji848]

Click to expand...

Amen! I've shared the story before about having to take my little troller through 6'-8' seas off of Egmont Key in Tampa, FL. It was a rather unpleasant experience but I learned a lot about how my boat handles. Wifey was sea sick and my assurances that our boat is self righting didn't help the matter!

Models, under test, always seem "corky" compared to real ships/boats in similar/real conditions. Ideally, the specific gravity of the liquid would be adjusted to the scale of the model?

Interesting videos, thanks for sharing.

A few months ago I went on a sea trial of a brand new Nordic Tug similar to mine. It was blowing 40+ knots in Rosario Strait with correspondingly nasty seas. The boat did great, but the thing that struck me was how the lack of stuff moving around made a huge difference in my impression of the sea state. Without dishes clanking in the cupboard or anything flying off counters, the conditions didn't seem nearly as bad as they would have on a boat loaded for cruising.