Wakes are always interesting to watch. But usually, I am showing wakes of ships going straight ahead. So today, I have something cool for you: The wake of a ship doing a 90 degree turn! And what that does is that the feathery wake that is usually V-shaped now gets deformed! And this deformation of […]
My friend Alice (of the awesome Instagram @scied_alice and the equally awesome blog, which you should totally follow) sent me a #friendlywaves from her trip to Cyprus. She said that this was a simple one, so I am looking forward to what else she has up her sleeve once I pass this test ;-) So here we go […]
What I love about my job (in addition to the awesome job itself, obviously)? That my office is located in pretty much the coolest spot in Hamburg when it comes to touristy views of the city. So much great wave watching (and ship watching) to be done here! For example below, see the small ferry on […]
The other day, my friend and co-author Pierré sent me pictures he took during fieldwork in a Norwegian fjord. As I, sadly, wasn’t there, all I can do now is admire the pictures and wish I had been there. And, of course, do a #friendlywaves — an interpretation of a wave field that a friend […]
Now that the weather is nice and sunny again, here is what it looked like only last Saturday. It wasn’t even really stormy, but windy enough so that the ships leaving the locks at Kiel Holtenau were working a lot harder than usual. Especially difficult when you are almost empty and then there is a […]
On Sunday, I set out to see a large cruise liner go through the locks at Kiel Holtenau. What happened, though, was that a ship with a smiley painted on its deck came first. Do you see the two shadows to the right of the ship, the left one aligning with the one side of […]
Some throwback Friday evening wave watching (at the locks at Kiel Holtenau with my friend Sara for a nice and relaxing end of the week) to start the new week. The best! First: The pilot boat going towards the locks. Unusually visible wake — they are going fast today! Plus an interesting sheltering of waves: […]
Berlin is full of interesting history to discover … for example that of ships that have gone past on the Spree! :-D Let’s start with some easy wave watching. In the picture above, you see a ship and its wake (both parts: the turbulent one where the ship has gone, and the feathery wake that […]
Yes, we are back to wake watching! Today I went to a new-to-me wave watching spot: The bridge across Kiel canal close to the Holtenau locks, which you see in the background of the picture below. And I should have checked out my favourite ship tracking app for better timing, I had to wait for […]
Usually I look at wakes when ships are long gone, or at least leaving. Today, let’s look at one where the ship is coming towards us and we see how a bow wave turns into the feathery V-shaped wake! That’s actually all I want to say today. Except look at how well you see where […]
Beautiful morning arriving back in Kiel… Looking downwind, the weather might seem pleasant (especially when focussing on the sunrise). But looking upwind however, the wind rows on the water as well as the white caps on the waves indicate that it’s quite windy! Very cool: the turbulent wake of a ship interrupts the wave field […]
Wave watching from high up gives you a whole new perspective on wakes, and depending on the lighting, features in the wave field become more prominent or fade away. See for example below the ferry: You very prominently see the turbulent wake right behind the ship, and you see the waves of the wake opening […]
Even when I fully intend to just go for a Saturday afternoon walk to catch up with a friend, this is what happens… I get distracted by waves. Like the crisscrossing pattern of waves and their reflections that you see below. Or the amazing bow waves of ships passing by. Isn’t it fascinating what a […]
Guess the title says it all today ;-) Just kidding. Below you see a movie of a neat interference pattern I observed this morning. The situation is similar to yesterday in that the ferry has sailed past and the wake runs up on those bathing steps. But: today it’s quite windy and the wind waves’ crests […]
Ending 2018 in style and exactly the way I want to continue in 2019: wave watching and dipping into Kiel fjord! 2018 has been an exciting year and a lot of changes that will shape 2019 to be very different from anything I have ever done before have already been set in motion. But despite […]
Now that we do have a really awesome 12-layer 6-color stratification, we obviously had to do the dead water experiment again. This time we chose to include a not-too-happy-looking Nansen on the ship, too! I love this even more than the one we did yesterday!
And here is another experiment that can be done with the same stratification as the lee waves: Towing a ship to explore the phenomenon of “dead water”! Dead water is well known for anyone sailing on strong stratifications, i.e. in regions where there is a shallow fresh or brackish layer on top of a much […]
My dear ship builder and naval architect friends, if this post seems horribly oversimplified to you, you are very welcome to write a guest post and go into this topic in as much detail as you feel is needed :-) So now my dear non-ship builder and non-naval architect friends, here is a post about […]
A tank experiment showing ship-generated internal waves. When entering a fjord from the open ocean by ship, it can sometimes be noted that the speed of the ship changes even though apparently nothing else changed – the wind didn’t change, the position of the sails didn’t change, the settings on the engine didn’t change – […]
