Scientists have used a Lego pirate floating in a fish tank to demonstrate for the first time that so-called ‘super rogue waves’ can come from nowhere in apparently calm seas and engulf ships.

The research team, led by Professor Nail Akhmediev of the Research School of Physics and Engineering at ANU, working with colleagues from Hamburg University of Technology and the University of Turin have been conducting experiments in nonlinear dynamics, to try and explain so-called rogue or killer waves. These high-impact ‘monsters of the deep’, can appear in otherwise tranquil oceans causing danger, and even sinking ships.