Cape Hatteras Fears...

[B.C.]

Jay, was that you or Jersey that had their bride curtains blown out going out the inlet?

[Captain Jay Kavanagh]

It was me, big swell at the inlet, hard ebb tide. I thought we were through the worst of it and way out by the last set of cans, one jacked up and the face broke through the curtains, bout an 7-8' 15' face on her, washed out my curtains, chipped two front teeth on the wheel, bloodied my nose, cut my eye, when the force of water rolled me up under the console I hit the kill switch with my sholder, shutting off the motor. bout three feet of water in the cockpit, eric ran down the ladder and opened the tuna door to drain it, I fired up the boat and got the hell out of there.

Broke a motor mount another time in the inlet.

Crush em, I am not trying to down grade your experience but I doubt you saw a 22' wave. Maybe 8'.

Most people don't know how waves are measured, from a flat sea, not from trough to crest, on top of that most people exagerate, hey we are fisherman. So a 22' face on a wave would actually be 11' wave, that is pretty damn big.

I think during Isabelle, the one that whiped out the east end of Hatteras Village and cut the road in half, the bouy measured waves in the 20' range, that must have been when crush em was out there rounding the cape.

[Anders]

When measuring waves, do you take into account the swell? or is there one? what would be the difference inshore? Just curious because I have no clue.

[jfishin]

Back in the 90s it started out as a beautiful morning up around the 280 rocks. Heard the OI guys warning the small boats down south to run for the beach theres a blow coming? Within an hour it went from nothing to BIG Stuff. Took one over the stern (42' boat) as I was cranking them in. I will never forget seeing those Penn 50s shining under water as the wave came over. Amazing how much water came in. Not sure how big they were but three hours later as we came through the inlet they were reporting 13' at the Sea bouy. To this day I have never seen it come up so fast and from no where?

[Sea Draggin]

I will never forget seeing those Penn 50s shining under water as the wave came over.\

We had a similar blow up last memorial day. Small boaters were abandoning their boats and hopping on bigger boats out of fear of their lives.