Sail on a tsunami

A tsunami is not just an wave. It's an very large wave or as someone should say a huge wave. The word "tsunami" is Japanese and means harbour wave. The name comes of that the fishermen could be out in the open sea without notice anything but when they returned to land there was a big disaster. This have to do with that the wave in the open sea can transport in a big area but when it's more shallow the waves presses up and turn into a big visible wave. The start of the tsunami can have many reasons. It can be earthquakes, volcano activities and other causes that make water move. In this articles we will not focus on the big devastation it can cause. Instead we will try to figure out how and if it's possible to sail on a tsunami.

A sailboat have some big weaknesses. It's speed depends very much on the wind and it's not very good if we fall on the wrong side. When do we actually mean that we are sailing on a tsunami? We could say that we sail on a tsunami when the wave passes through under us when we are on the open sea but that's no fun. Instead we want to sail high up on the tsunami wave and hopefully stay there for some seconds. It's not enough that you take some sailing lessons before you try. You will not learn how to sail on tsunamis, I promise. So we need some strategies to succeed.

Wait for the tsunami
we could sail near land and wait for the tsunami. When the tsunami comes we will face the boat towards the wave because the boat is made to stand up to waves better from the front. A big risk is that the wave is too much like a wall of water coming against us. There is no boat insurance that will cover that cost. We would probably die. If we manage to reach the top the wave should probably continue under us and we will immediately go down on the other side. No fun here.

Sail with the tsunami
If we want to sail on top of the wave for some time we need to have the same speed as the wave. If we sail on the open sea when the wave begins to raise we will comfortable come to the top of the wave. When the wave grows we must have the same speed as the wave. The wave will slow down some when it begin to raise. There is one main problem with this. The speed of the tsunami in the open sea is up to 700 km/h. On shallow water the speed can be about 50 km/h but we have to reach the top much more earlier than that. We need very strong wind to reach enough speed. I don't know how such strong winds should affect the tsunami. Maybe it would gain speed too and we have no chance. If we have some other kind of boat it might be possible bot not cheap.

Find a tsunami
Another problem is to find a tsunami and be prepared to sail on it at the right moment. We can't know when tsunami will come. If it has started we can know that it is on its way here and then we have to handle fast. We could never know the exactly speed and time so it would be extremely hard to know when we should start and what speed we should have. Maybe it is possible to make a tsunami. We could use some nuclear weapons at the sea bed. That could cause a tsunami but it would not be easy so there is no idea to try. The boat charters and tourists will also be too disturbed.

We have come to a point when we have to accept that the dream of sailing on a tsunami never will come true. As close as most of us will come is to sailing vacations. I don't think we want a tsunami then. But it could have been interesting.