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They have long been mariners' tales of 100-foot rogue waves – gargantuan monsters that sink super-tankers in the blink of an eye. But waves that high violate the laws of physics, so science has dismissed them as myth. Until now. In February 2000 the research ship, RRS Discovery, was trapped by a vortex of mammoth waves in the North Atlantic.
Amazingly the ship survived and its state-of-the-art equipment registered waves nearing 100-feet. Something scary is brewing in the planet's waters. And with 72 per cent of earth covered by sea, this is serious business. Cut to Maui, Hawaii, a surf mecca where a 100-foot wave is seen as the ultimate challenge. Casey follows extreme surfing legend, Laird Hamilton, and his unique tribe as they hunt down this grail. The action zips from Lloyds of London to rusty oil rigs, tropical Tahitian surf shacks to supercomputer data labs, as Casey juxtaposes the exploits of big-wave surfers against scientists' urgent efforts to predict devastating rogue waves.
Like Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, The Wave is an extraordinary story about man confronting nature at its most ferocious.
Susan Casey, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Devil's Teeth, is the Editor-in-Chief of O, the Oprah Magazine, and has also served as creative director of Outside magazine.
"Examines big waves from every angle, and goes in deep with . . . mariners, wave scientists and extreme surfers. . . . [A] wonderfully vivid, kinetic narrative."
- The New York Times Book Review
"Immensely powerful, beautiful, addictive and, yes, incredibly thrilling. . . . Like a surfer who is happily hooked, the reader simply won't be able to get enough of it."
- San Francisco Chronicle
"[An] adrenaline rush of a book. . . . As terrifying as it is awe inspiring."
- People
"Casey's descriptions of these monsters are as gripping in their own way as any mountaineering saga from the frozen peaks of Everest or K2."
- The Washington Post Book World
"Susan Casey's white-knuckle chronicle . . . delivers a thrill so intense you may never get in a boat again."
- Entertainment Weekly
