Fleet Air Arm Museum carrier experience used to show a parked Buccaneer going over the side of the Ark Royal.

This was done for the flight safety film but we did lose a SHAR overboard from Invincible during the Falklands. The captain was invited to the wardroom that evening and accosted by a SHAR pilot who accused him of driving his ship like an effin speed boat! Cue early bed time.

Mog

“Buccaneer XN954. Deliberately dropped into the English Channel off HMS Ark Royal during the making of a Royal Navy safety film about the accidental loss of XT269 (031/R) from Ark Royal 15/2/1972. The safety training film re-staged the accident, and showed what to do to prevent it happening again.” http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=157090 Last JPG: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/512214157618381088/

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....31ee799595.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cc0ce63d2b.jpg

Can't fault this training for lack of realism.

Spaz ... thanks for those videos. Thirteen airborne and nobody is trapping a wire? Deffo not my scene.

I believe "flight deck height" would be a better term to use than "freeboard" when referring to an aircraft carriers flight deck. Happy to be corrected. Freeboard could be lower, as in the hangar deck. Some aircraft carriers such as the Midway's and some WWII era carriers had notoriously low freeboards, and were known as wet ships.

I imagine recovery will be a priority. US Navy SUP Salvage has had some interesting recent recoveries.

On 3 March 2010, three rogue waves hit Louis Majesty, killing two passengers. This accident happened in an area of the Mediterranean called the Gulf of Leon, which is known for big waves when storms hit.

https://abc7news.com/archive/7312146/

You Tube

On 26th September 2010 we were sailing out of Monte Carlo on our first cruise, bound for Barcelona on the P&O Oceana. That evening the captain advised us that they were expecting it to get a bit rough, Force 8; during the night the wind and the waves crashing against the ship woke us up, I said to my wife that is never a Force 8 more like a10. In the morning the captain admitted that it was worse than they had expected :O and was in fact a Force 10. The crew were out early in the morning repairing the broken bits, mostly handrails and deck tiling.

That matches my memory.

Wasn't that in the Caption Competition a couple of years ago?

Rogue waves
 

Here are a few interesting things about rogue waves

Obviously not seen the 1970s disaster movie "The Poseidon Adventure". :)

Here ya go: Navy Weighing Recovery of Super Hornet Lost in Mediterranean Sea - USNI News

P'raps this is a new submarine SupaHorneto wersion? "...According to a source, the Super Hornet was a two-seat F/A-81F[sic] and was assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 211, based at Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia...." https://seapowermagazine.org/f-a-18-...arry-s-truman/

Yes, agreed. On further enquiry freeboard is the height above the sea up to which there needs to be watertight bulkheads and watertight doors. I can imagine hangars, and even more so the load decks of car ferries are pretty low - as we recall from the Herald of Free Enterprise.

The oil tanker Kirki had the bow fall off in rough seas, aided by a forepeak ballast tank full of water when it was supposed to be dry.


A comedians take.

I was on the "Australis" in 1974 and we were supposed to dock at Cherbourg after sailing from Southampton. There was a gale in the Bay of Biscay and a wave broke several windows on the Promenade deck! We never did get to Cherbourg and sailed on to the next port which was Las Palmas. It was the only time that I have been sea sick on a ship. It didn't help that I had just had lunch in the restaurant.

I'd highly recommend that Rogue Wave doco - it terrified Mrs T. when we watched it years ago.
Astonishing how something as basic as wave theory was found lacking after the Draupner Wave incident - which showed that hundreds of years of mariners' tales about freak waves emerging from nowhere - were likely true.
And the bit where they used a satellite to look for rogue waves globally, and found them all over the place - chilling.

Might be why certain nautical charts had zones marked "here be dragons" back in the day. :}

Naval Aviation News May 1968 "...[USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14)] En route to WestPac, Tico encountered 35-foot waves and high winds gusting up to 90 miles per hour about 400 miles east of Japan...." https://www.history.navy.mil/content.../pdf/may68.pdf
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0cccaefea4.jpg

Have there ever been any successful underwater ejections?

The Ejection Site: Underwater Ejection VERY DRAMATIC VERY DETAILED telling of the tale from a Corsair II pilot going over the side during his arrested landing that had some shortcomings. Then a WHY VERN!
66 years ago today a pilot ejected from an aeroplane trapped underwater! | Hush-Kit (hushkit.net)
This site is damn near impossible to use - you may have some joy: Approach - Google Books
Spend yur mony here folk: Underwater ejection | Journal of The Royal Naval Medical Service (bmj.com)
Google: Underwater Ejections - Google Search

The SEA HAWK 'girdle' off - VIKRANT catapult: Navy’s first underwater ejection- The New Indian Express

Safe underwater ejection from a downed fighter jet. HD Stock Footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfVKUdA433Q