How likely would it be for a cruise ship to encounter a wave that might tip it over?
Not very likely. In fact, Richard Burke, professor and chairman of engineering at the Maritime College of the State University of New York, said he would be as worried about it as an asteroid hitting the Earth. “Encountering a storm at sea and having the ship moving around and possibly getting seasick, those things happen. But we’re talking about waves of extraordinary magnitude that are very, very rare,” Burke said. Giant waves: Tall tales or alarming fact? The chances of a “Poseidon Adventure” disaster happening on a modern ship are virtually nonexistent, said Harry Bolton, captain of the training ship “Golden Bear” at the California Maritime Academy. The only way that it could happen is if the ship were in extreme weather and positioned sideways to a 70- to 100-foot wave that would have the potential of rolling it over, Bolton said. “I guarantee you’re never going to be in those kinds of waves anyway,” he said. “[Cruise ships] avoid bad weather like the plague. They don’t want the p
