The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean

I have mixed feelings about Susan Casey's newest book, The Wave. She's the author of one of my favorite non-fiction books last year, The Devil's Teeth, which was one of those scattershot approaches to science and history that are so popular right now. You know, the kind of book which gives you a bunch of fun facts and exciting anecdotes about a subject, without going into too much detail or challenging the reader with difficult bits of the science. It sounds terrible, but when it works, it's entertaining and gives the reader a good jumping off point for further reading. In the case of The Devil's Teeth, Casey took the Farallons, a group of hostile islands west of San Francisco, and created an enticing mix of history and natural science show more (birds, sharks and currents) that was hard to put down.

She's less successful in The Wave and I'm not sure whether it was that the topic was too broad to be handled as the stream of consciousness of someone who is easily distracted, or because the heart of the book was not in a place that interested me. The concept of the book is that until recently it was believed that waves of 100 feet or more were simply impossible from the point of view of basic physics; the weight of the water would cause the wave to collapse upon itself before it grew that high, and eyewitness accounts (which are rare, for reasons of drowning) were overstated due to understandable excitement. Then an 850-foot long cargo ship went down in a storm and the wreck showed damage high up on it's structure. An oil platform was also hit by a rogue wave of over 100 feet high and damage to the structure proved the oil workers were not making things up.

Half of the chapters are about how scientists are studying the physics of waves, how global warming is influencing the size of waves (hint: they are getting bigger), describing instances of giant waves and their aftermath and in discussing how we are reacting to the challenge of rogue waves. This was all excellent, although I would have liked a great deal more. She only describes one event in any detail and the book would have benefited from describing more dramatic events and with paying more attention to them. I would have also liked more of the science, which seems to be complex and speculative.

The other half of the book, told in alternating chapters, was a sort of sports article about a year in the life of surfing king Laird Hamilton, who developed something called tow-surfing. As waves get bigger, they also get faster, so that traditional surfing, where the surfer paddles out to the wave and "catches" it no longer works. Instead, the surfer is chauffeured out to the wave on a jet ski and sort of flung at speed onto its face. The jet ski then drives round the wave to rescue the surfer at the end of his ride. This would have made a great twenty pages or so, but Casey looooves the daredevil romance of it all, in which Hamilton and his entourage of fellow surfers and photographers travel the world to ride the enormous waves generated by storms at sea, and describes day after day of Hamilton's surfing exploits in Hawai'i, California, Mexico and Tahiti. Frankly, Hamilton comes across as an entitled asshat and I quickly grew tired of his complaints about how surfing is no longer the pure sport he practices (as supported by his corporate sponsorships), or how he hates competitions (as he travels with photographers on hand to film his majestic rides) and anyone surfing where he wants to surf. I'm not someone who would pick up a sports biography, so I'm clearly not the right person to comment on that half of the book, but it became a little repetitive over time.

Still, the central topic is fascinating and anything written about our changing oceans is worth a read. show less

“Catch a wave and you’re sitting on top of the world.” Yes, that’s the Beach Boys and if Brian Wilson would have caught a glimpse of one of these monster waves, he might have started hitting the LSD much earlier. Like the title suggests, this is a book about waves, mostly of the freakishly large variety. Casey travels the world, visiting scientists and other experts, trying to find some answers to the origins of these deadly rogues, that can turn a super cargo ship, into a crumpled beer can in a matter of seconds, but even with satellite tracking and other advanced technology, these answers can be elusive. The one thing that is clear though, due to climate change, the oceans are getting warmer and more volatile. The author ends show more up zeroing in on the big-wave surfing community, a ballsy group of mavericks, who hunt down these “giants”, for the ultimate thrill. Her descriptions of what is called tow-surfing, (where the surfer is hauled up to the wave by jet ski) are very exciting and quite scary. “Everything‘s okay until it isn’t.” goes a famous saying, which seems to sum up this dangerous sport, very nicely. Recommended. show less

Waves can be thought of small and harmless, as they wash gently against your feet on a sun kissed beach. But they have a darker side, an ability to become an enormous destructive force that can obliterate landscapes, cities and ships.

Fifteen years ago scientists did not believe the reports of 100 foot high waves that appeared from nowhere in calm seas to sink boats. Their models didn’t show them, and they thought they were myths or just wrong estimates of the height of the wave. But then there were two instances, an oil rig that had sensors fitted to record the heights of the waves beneath the platform, and a research ship in the Atlantic that was caught in a horrendous storm. The measurements proved what scientists didn’t believe show more was possible; that not only did these monster waves exist, and they occurred frequently.

Each year a number of ships disappear completely without trace. It was thought that it was because of maintenance or other factors, but it is now believed that some of them are completely overwhelmed by these freak waves. Casey visits Lloyds in London to see the register of lost ships and talk to the insurance giant about ship losses. It is thought that around two big ships a week are lost, mostly bulk carriers, and there are pictures in the book of ships with their bows ripped off, and 70 foot high decks being covered with water

She spends a lot of time with those at the leading edge of surfing. This select group are the guys who only want to surf the giant 60 foot plus waves. This is a dangerous game, and even though the safety equipment has improved since the beginning, lives are lost every year. A lot of these waves are formed by the geology in particular coastal areas and this forces the wave higher and increases the danger as they are above reefs or close to cliffs. To even get onto these wave require the surfer to be towed onto the wave behind a jet ski..

Even thought this is a nonfiction book about the sea, it reads like a thriller. Casey’s writing add drama and eloquence to the drama of being on a ship that is at the mercy of the sea, the anticipation of the surfers waiting for that perfect 100 foot wave and the scientists who are humbled by the power of the natural world. show less

This book was a fast read and felt more like a thriller than a scientific book. I found it fascinating reading about the power of the ocean and giant waves. Imagining is fine for me because I would never want to see one in person unless assured I could view it from a safe distance! It still amazes me that there is so much unknown about the whole phenomena of waves and the ocean itself. Much of the book focuses on surfers and their experiences searching for and riding "terrifyingly large waves of seventy and eight feet." Utter craziness!

I had reservations about this book. I've been skateboarding and snowboarding for nearly two decades now, but have never surfed . . . I would and I'd probably do alright if it weren't for the fact that I'd do REALLY well with the drowning part since I'm a horrible swimmer.

Anyway, enough about me and more about the book. Casey does a great job with the stories here. She follows, for the most part, living surf legend Laird Hamilton on a number of big wave excursions. She draws enough others into the mix as well and really gives enough detail about each that I was concerned when a chapter gives a hint that someone actually died on a particular day in the waves. Casey does a great job of providing a number of cliffhangers throughout the show more book, making me want to keep reading just one more chapter to see how things went before putting the book down for the night. Of course, that "one more chapter" turned into two or three more often than not.

In addition to the surfing, she also included interviews with scientists studying the ocean, waves and the environment. Wisely, this information wasn't too overwhelming. It was really interesting to me, but in small doses - which Casey manages to deliver. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and there's a lot of different reasons others might as well - from the extreme sports enthusiasts to the environmentally conscious to those who just love a good cliffhanger. show less

Wow! What a ride! This is a great book!

I grew up in land-locked Oklahoma. I married a guy from Florida who spent as much time surfing as he did going to college. On our honeymoon, he tried to introduce me to the ocean. The waves were up to my armpits and he tried to get me to swim through one to get past the break. I didn’t make it. I just remember my head lying on the sand and not being able to get up. When the wave finally retreated I pulled myself up and got out of the water as quickly as I could. That was it. From that point on in my life I only went in up to my knees.

That’s part of the reason I started this book with both anticipation and fear. The idea of someone actually wanting to ride a 100-foot wave fascinated me, but if a show more 4-foot wave could unhinge me, what would descriptions of a pounding by a 100-foot wave do?

The book did not disappoint. The stories that Susan Casey tells of Laird Hamilton and his buddies taking on these giants of the oceans were breathtaking. I enjoyed learning about the mechanics of tow surfing and getting into the heads of the surfers as they do things that humans are not supposed to be able to do.

When I started the book I wondered how much there could be to say about waves, but Casey did a great job mixing up the stories of surfing with interviews with experts studying how these waves are generated and what can be done to help those responsible for steering giant ships through them and rescuing those who get caught in them. Even those chapters kept me up at night wanting to see what happened next.

And one other kudo to Casey. This is a book of superlatives. Describing ultimate waves, the scientists that study them, and the brave but wacky surfers that ride them over and over again could have degenerated into a book of clichés, but Casey didn’t let that happen. She did a great job keeping the similes and metaphors fresh throughout.

Great book! Highly recommended! show less

The Wave is really two books. More to the point, it really should have been two books . . . and one of them should have been written by someone besides Susan Casey.

The first book -- the one that gets more than half the space, the one that (doubtless) sold the publisher on this project, and the one where Casey's heart was in -- is about big-wave surfers, who drop everything to travel to distant corners of the world and ride 50, 60, and even 70-foot waves. It is to surfing what climbing Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen is to mountaineering: Possible, if you're very, very good and know exactly what you're doing, but insanely dangerous even then. Casey writes about the subculture from the inside, all gee-whiz enthusiasm and gushy show more description of what amazing guys these surfers are, but she makes it work. The surfing chapters of The Wave (even those involving death and serious injury) somehow manage to persuade you, the reader, that top big-wave surfers approach their craft like the test pilots in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff.

The second book -- the one that should have been written by somebody else -- deals with the science of "big" waves, which for Casey includes not only freak mid-ocean waves, but also tsunamis and storm surges (coastal flooding caused by hurricanes and typhoons, certain to get worse as the polar ice recedes and sea levels rise). All those are fascinating subjects, but they're different subjects . . . from one another and from the storm-driven, shore-breaking waves that Casey's beloved surfers ride. She touches on all of them, but because they collectively get less than half the book there's not enough room to do justice to any of them, or to their implications for ships and coastal cities. A writer like John McPhee or Laurie Garrett -- comfortable with science, and gifted at explaining the complex clearly -- could have made this second book sing. In Casey's hands, it thuds. The science doesn't resonate, for her, the way the surf and the surfers do, and it shows.

The Wave succeeds as a surf-bum version of Into Thin Air or The Perfect Storm . . . but not as a piece of popular science. Here's hoping that some enterprising writer, and some astute publisher, get together and give the big waves the (science) book they deserve. show less