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"The Maritime Court said the ship sank when bad weather caused an 'unusual event' "

Austin chuckled "Sounds as if the Mariti around the real conclusion"

"The ree with you They were outraged They knew exactly what sunk the Munchen Sailors had been talking for years about their encounters aves eighty or ninety feet tall, but the scientists didn't believe their stories"

"I've heard the stories about monster waves, but I've never experienced one firsthand"

"Be thankful, because ouldn't be having this conversation if you had run into one of these creatures"

"In a way, I don't bla cautious," Austin said "Sailors do have a reputation for stretching the truth"

"I can vouch for that," Zavala said with a wistful s aboutone"

"No doubt the court was leery of headlines about va to the conventional scientific wisdom at the time, waves like the ones the mariners reported were theoretically i a set of mathematical equations, called the Linear Model, which said that a ninety-foot wave occurs only once every ten thousand years"

"Apparently, after the loss of the Munchen we don't have anything to worry about for the next hundred centuries," Austin said with a wry grin

"That was the thinking before the Draupner case"

"You're talking about the Draupner oil rig off Norway?"

"You've heard of Draupner?"

"I worked on North Sea rigs for six years," Austin said "It would be hard to find anyone on a rig who hadn't heard about the wave that slammed into the Draupner tower"

"The rig is about one hundred miles out to sea," Adler explained to Zavala "The North Sea is infamous for its lousy weather, but a real stinker of a stor battered by thirty- to forty-foot waves Then they got sla's sensors measured at ninety feet It still leaves me breathless to think about, it"

"Sounds like the Draupner ashed the Linear Model down the drain," Zavala said