The sinking of the El Faro: predicting real world rogue waves during Hurricane Joaquin

Abstract: We present a study on the prediction of rogue waves during the 1-hour sea state of Hurricane Joaquin when the Merchant Vessel El Faro sank east of the Bahamas on October 1, 2015. High-resolution hindcast of hurricane-generated sea states and wave simulations are combined with novel probabilistic models to quantify the likelihood of rogue wave conditions. The data suggests that the El Faro vessel was drifting at an average speed of approximately~$2.5$~m/s prior to its sinking. As a result, we estimated that the probability that El Faro encounters a rogue wave whose crest height exceeds 14 meters while drifting over a time interval of 10~(50) minutes is $\sim1/400$~$(1/130)$. The largest simulated rogue wave has similar generating mechanism and characteristics of the Andrea, Draupner and Killard rogue waves as the constructive interference of elementary waves enhanced by bound nonlinearities.