Tag Archives: wakes

Birds make for super interesting wave watching!

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My perfect Saturdays start like this: Early morning walk along the water, followed by coffee while blogging about waves. Today’s focus: The cool waves that birds make!

First, let’s look at the weird way in which seagulls take off from water. They make a big splash which develops into ring-shaped waves. So far, so good. But…

…that’s usually not all that happens: They usually hit the water a couple more times before they fully take flight, thus leaving a trail of circular waves radiating from each of the points where they hit the water.

This morning, there was a seagull sitting very close to the sea wall (which you see in the lower right corner of the picture), probably eating or washing its feathers; in any case radiating off waves. When I looked down, it flew up, hit the water once, landed again, and then began to swim away.

And you can see all of this in the waves!

The green cross below marks the spot where the seagull sat before I interrupted it. It must have been sitting there for a bit judging from the radius of the circular waves marked in green that radiate from that exact spot.

But then when the seagull saw me, it took off, dipped once into the water (green cross and corresponding wave circle), and then landed again (red cross) and swam away from there (following the red arrow on which the centers of the red circles fall).

How cool is this?

Once it was just swimming and not dipping in and out of the water, it begand to develop a regular, v-shaped wake (red V) that consists of individual “feathers” or wakelets (yellow).

It continued swimming away, albeit taking a little turn…

You still see the green waves from where it was sitting originally, and then the red waves from where it landed and swam away on the path marked by the red arrow.

This kind of stuff makes me so happy! :-)

From the waves in the picture below, can you tell me what that seagull did before the picture was taken?

A #friendlywaves from Lofoten

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A #friendlywaves post: you send me the pictures, I talk about physics! Today: My friend A sent me these lovely pictures from Lofoten, knowing I love wave watching. And there is so much to see!

Let’s begin with the picture above, where we are looking out over the stern of a ship towards a bridge. There are two different kind of things that jump out to me: The ship’s wake and the tidal current.

The ship’s wake consists of two parts: The turbulent wake we see right in the middle of the picture, behind the A-frame crane (in between the red lines below), and the feathery V-shaped wake (some of the individual “feathers” are marked in green).

And then there is the turbulent backwater behind the bridge’s pylons that’s caused by the tidal current going through underneath the bridge. Pretty cool, isn’t it?

And now on to the next picture, that is one of the most beautiful wave pictures I’ve seen the last couple of weeks: Now we are sailing in the wake of a second ship.

We are following the other ship a bit off to the side, therefore the perspective is a little confusing. Between the red lines, we see the other ship’s turbulent wake. Additionally, it has an interesting V-shaped wake that actually consists of two stacked Vs, a bit like this: <<

One of the Vs is the actual bow wave radiating from where the ship’s bow cuts through the water, the second one detaches further backwards from the ship. Both Vs are marked in dark green below. But to the left of the picture, in light green, I marked some of the individual “feathers”, wavelets that make up the V-shaped wake.

Isn’t it fascinating? I love this.

Some port of Kiel #wavewatching: A feathery wake getting fanned out and bunched together!

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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 the wake means that on one side of the wake, the feathery waves that are usually parallel now become fanned open, while on the other side they get bunched together. See?

After the ship had gone a lot further, there were still effects of its wake visible, both of the waves created as well as the turbulent wake that is still visible in a surface roughness that is different from the rest of Kiel fjord, and a little foam.

Fascinating how long such a wake stays visible!

And fascinating that such a small boat — even though it was going a lot faster — does create waves that are a lot higher than the much larger ColorLine does!

If you look at the large ColorLine, you see that there is a large turbulent wake, but (at this speed) hardly any waves created, so hardly a V-shaped wake!

Of course, it speeds up a lot as it sails out of Kiel fjord, and then things get more interesting wave-wise here, too :-)

When commuting is actually enjoyable. #wavewatching

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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 right, and how well you see the bow waves in this kind of light?

And below, it has turned and is heading out into the main Elbe arm and you can spot the turbulent wake that reflects the sun very differently from the rest of the water on either side.

And then just casually strolling past dry docks, container terminals, huuuge ships…

I really enjoy this every day! Hamburg, the gateway to the world.

Hijacking other people’s “good morning!” tweets to talk about a duck’s wake

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A beautiful picture: the pink sky, purple clouds, a peaceful channel flowing in between lush greens that the calm water surface mirrors back, a bridge somewhere in the background, connecting the shores, both in reality and in the image on the water. Early morning harmony. Hygge?

And what jumps at me?

Waves!

Which I think are really beautiful: Featured in the dark images of the trees on the water, a duck’s wake reflects the light sky back to us, thus becoming visible. And once we spot the V in the waves, with the almost invisible duck at its tip, we can see how the space between the feathery sides of the V is filled with half circles, connecting the feathers. They get more and more difficult to see the further away from the duck we look. The contrast becomes less clear where they aren’t set against the dark backdrop, and the more the waves dissipate with time.

This kind of waves is so common all around us, all the time. Did you ever really stop and look? It’s so worthwhile to really observe these things, to me that is happiness :-)

The Teltow channel and the bridge connecting Lankwitz and Steglitz, by Henning Krause. Picture used with permission

Spotting both the V-shaped and turbulent wake of a faraway ship on a calm day

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The title says it all, I guess ;-)

In the picture above, you can still see the ship on the left, and having seen the ship, I am sure you can recognise the turbulent wake in the picture below, too: It’s the lighter blue stripe towards the horizon with darker, rougher sea surface to either side.

And in the top picture, you see individual “feathers”, i.e. parts of the V-shaped wake with the ship at its tip, coming towards us, whereas in the bottom picture, a little later, the one part of the V has reached us and we see the “feathers” as the wave crests that are more or less perpendicular to the bottom of the picture.

I find it interesting how the perspective makes it seem as if the wavelength gets a lot longer towards us, but that’s really only the perspective. Also the closest two or so crests are really hard to see — can you spot them? The closest one you can see better on the right side of the picture where there is a sudden change from a darker to a lighter part coming across, and the second one you see more easily on the left side, again, with a quick change between darker and lighter. And the third one is fairly easily visible all across the picture.

Do you do wave watching when you are at the water?

Windy days at Holtenau locks: Now THAT’s a turbulent wake!

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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 lot of wind! See that wake?

Right behind the ship you see above, there was a second ship leaving the locks. See how milky the water looks where the first ship went from all the air bubbles that were pushed under water by the ship’s propeller? You can even see some of that water spreading underneath that floating barrier in the foreground!

And see the difference between the waves on the upwind side of the ship and the downwind side?

Here is the picture that my friend sent me that she took from inside of the café that we were sitting in before I HAD to go outside and take pictures. If I am being sent pictures of my back every week by my friends, are they trying to tell me something? :-D

Wave watching at Kiel Holtenau locks

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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 the wake’s V? That’s the pillars the bridge is resting on.

This ship has a very interesting wake, since it consists of several Vs. Not quite sure why. Also, it seems to be driving in a very non-straight line, judging by its turbulent wake.

But watch what happens when the wake hits the sides of the canal.

The green thingy interrupts the straight line of the shore and creates these beautiful ring waves!

A little while later they have spread half way across the channel, while on the other side, the wake is just reflected on the shore.

It looks funny how the reflections are so asymmetrical relative to the ship, but of course the ship isn’t driving in the middle of the channel, so they have to be.

And on the other side of Kiel fjord? Yep, the cruise liner speeding past the locks. Clearly they decided to not take the shortcut through Kiel canal.

And now the small ferry is starting to cross. And in the background: The cruise liner!

I realize the earlier pictures in this posts were a lot nicer than these, but look how funny: Above you see the small ferry going around the larger ship, and the wake tracking where it went on its turn. And below, it has turned into a V! Waves are funny.

Interesting pilot ship #wavewatching at Kiel canal

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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: The wind is coming towards us so outside of those floating pontoons are a lot larger than the ones on this side that haven’t had enough fetch to build up.

Below we see the same wake: But do you see how it’s just ending on the left? That’s because the pilot boat went in behind the jetty on the far side of the fjord, and it’s only these bits of the wake that were able to propagate outside before the boat went in and the waves don’t make it out of the small channel created by the jetty.

And below the pilot boat going out again in a curve: Love how you see the turbulent wake as well as the deformed V-shaped feathery wake. When you look from the pilot boat down on the picture, do you see the individual “feathers” of the V? Love this perspective on wakes!

And this is what you will see of me when you meet me for a coffee anywhere near water. Sorry Sara, but thanks for the picture! :-)

Sightseeing in Berlin? Any excuse for a #wavewatching trip!

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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 forms the V with the ship at its tip). And you can make out the wake of a ship that has already gone round that bend of the Spree: the turbulent part showing a different surface roughness, and reflected remains of the feathery V on the right shore of the Spree. So far, so good!

Below, you see two turbulent wakes: The one of the ship you still see, and then the one of a ship that went the other way, but already went out of the area captured in the picture.

Berlin Cathedral Church seen from across the Spree

And here is a series where you see the feathery wake reach the side of the Spree…

Bode museum and television tower Berlin

…get reflected there…

…and then meet the reflection of the other side of the V to form a checkerboard pattern! Would you have known what’s going on here if you hadn’t spotted the ship just about to leave the picture, or seen the previous images?

Below is another nice one. What happened here? A ship sat there, waiting, and then started moving again right before I took the picture! This is the beginning of a turbulent wake right here.

Reichstag, home of parlament

And below another nice wake plus reflection.

And here you see another feathery wake, plus the turbulent wake of the same ship on the other side of the Spree.

Reichstag, home of parlament

Similar picture as above, except in a different spot…

German Chanellery in Berlin seen across the Spree

Yes, that’s a pretty good representation of what sightseeing trips with me are like ;-)