Maritime English

Ahli Nautika Tingkat II

Meeting 19:
UNIT 8
Forecast Weather and Oceanographic Conditions
 
C. Ocean current systems

Instructor:
Oktaviany Ekawanda K., S.S., M.Pd
Indicator:
State the relationship between sea waves and swell waves

Swell vs. wind waves – what’s the difference?

Summary
This article will explain the difference between wind waves and swell waves

Continue to read if you like to learn about the magic of the ocean waves.

Waves are fascinating - when standing by the coastline, on a bridge or in a boat, looking out over
the sea and looking at the never stopping movement. If you let it, it can really hypnotize you by
its beauty, greatness and mystery. Not only that it’s changing color is depending on the sky, so a
grey rainy day seem even more dark and almost depressing. But the pattern! So mysterious how
the pattern can change so much, but anyway seem to be almost the same. Time to destroy the
mystery a little - as we are meteorologists and like when things are defined and explainable.
The coffee intro

Blow on the hot coffee!

When the coffee is too hot to drink, we instinctively blow at the surface to cool it down. Doing
so is changing the calm and still surface of the cup and instead it gets a pattern of small waves.
The waves you created remains in your cop a little while after you stopped blowing. This is sort
of the basics or at least illustrative basics of wind waves (sometimes called sea) and swell. These
are the two main types of waves that we will break down for you here. Something happens when
going from the size of a cup to a size of an ocean - and it is not only the size, but also that winds
rarely are calm.
Wave height and wave period

Before digging deeper, it will be good if you know what a wave height and a wave period are,
since they carry the main feature of all waves.
The wave height can be found if you look at the moving sea surface and then you choose one
wave. On this specific wave, you estimate the top and the valley - the difference between these
two heights is the wave height.
The wave period is the time in-between two wave tops. If you fix your eyes at one point in the
water and then starts counting the seconds when you see the first wave top pass this point until
the next wave top appear at the exact same point. The number of seconds you counted will be the
wave period.

Wind waves

The boat is sailing in wind waves

• Starting with the wind waves, and guess what - they are created by
the wind. The wind will transfer a small part of the wind energy to the
water due to friction between the two fluids – the water and the air
and due to an excess in pressure on the windward side of waves
compared to the pressure on the leeward side.
The energy will then move as a wave along the surface of the water.
There is a rather specific relationship between wind speed and the
resulting wave height, just as if you’re kicking a football with different
strength, it will reach different distances. However, this relationship is
not always true, as it also depends on the surroundings.
If the water is coastal, the waves may be lower than at the open sea
for the same wind speed. This is especially true when the wind
direction is from land and the wind fetch (the distance traveled by the
wind across open water) therefore is relatively small.
One more thing that always happens with wind waves - they follow
the same direction as the wind, as it is the wind that is pushing the
waves forward.
Swell

Calm winds and minor swell waves

Now it’s also time for us to move forward and go into the swell waves - shortly said they are old
wind waves. These old wind waves occur due to decreasing winds or a change in wind direction.
When wind waves have moved away from the area they were formed, they often change name
and become swell waves.
Regardless of reason, the fact is that the wind waves still have momentum even though nothing
may still be pushing them. But since wind energy isn’t added to the waves any longer, the waves
will slowly die out, but it takes time – and meanwhile they become swell.
This may seem odd - if they are the same, how can you then tell the difference you may ask.
Well we taught you about the wave heights and the periods, here they come in extra handy. As
the swell wave travel, the wave height will fall, and the wave period will become larger (and will
travel faster) – and also the wave length will become larger with time.
Furthermore, you can often tell it by the direction, as it most often doesn’t come from the same
direction as the wind.
• Back to the hypnotizing ocean - doesn’t it just
move too much to see any of these waves.
Perhaps, perhaps not. The sea surface is a
collection of waves with different heights and
periods, and it would take some practice to
distinguish wind waves and/or swell waves from
the other waves. The easiest way might be to find
the swell on a day with calm winds – without
disturbing wind waves. Or maybe the other way
around, when the sea surface has been calm and
the wind then increases – there you only will have
wind waves after a little while.
• https://ventomaritime.dk/blog/swell-vs-wind-wav
 Activity:

• Discuss in groups regarding relationship

between sea waves and swell waves and find
the advantages and disadvantages of the
waves to ships.
• Present in front of the class.