Extreme waves


There can be few people in the world that have as much knowledge


about extreme waves as Sverre Haver, StatoilHydro Senior Specialist,


Structural Safety. His name has become synonymous with the now infamous New Year


Wave” at the Draupner platform. In a rare interview, Mr Haver discusses his fascination with extreme


waves and he reveals his thoughts about whether an offshore platform can ever be deemed truly safe.


M


r Haver admits to having a fasci- nation with extreme waves. He speculates that perhaps this orig-


inates from his childhood where he grew up on the coast of southern Norway. Winter storms and hearing waves crashing over the cliffs were impressive, he comments but at that time, he naturally, had no idea that most of his career would be involved in the extreme wave phenomena.


Eureka moment A Eureka moment came at university where he studied naval archi- tecture. “I found the study somewhat boring until the third year when I followed a course ‘Stochastic modelling of ocean waves’. That was a turning point. Since that course I have never regretted my choice of study.”


In addition to being fun, prediction of the most severe wave events corresponding to a target annual exceedance probability, is also very important, he stresses. There are considerable, good quality observations about waves but the amount of observa-


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