Question about wave action on inland lake.

I have a boat on Lake Lanier in GA. The other morning I took it out,
and the overall wave action appeared to be different than usual.
It was a flat calm day, except when a passing boat produced some
waves. Most of the time the waves seem to be sort of peaked and
a bit sharp, but on this morning they were more rounded and flatter.
The first boat I noticed it from, I thought it might be simply due to
the shape of the boat itself. But after a while I noticed it was true of
all of them...which was cool with me because it meant I could go
faster without getting tossed in the air too much. It still made me
wonder *why* though. Could it have something to do with what
creates high and low tides, and/or why sometimes when you dig
a hole you seem to have more dirt than you took out and sometimes
you seem to have less? If so, is there a way to predict when waves
will tend to be sharper and when they will tend to be flatter, like
people can predict high and low tides?

Can't help you on the hole and dirt observation. Suggest you try the
gardening news group :-)

<dh...@nomail.com> wrote in message
news:5iro709vk46inb3df...@4ax.com...

In general there seem to be two things that affect the shape of a
boats wake.

First is distance. The further you are from the boat that made the
wake, the less steep it wil become. Steep waves represent a lot of
energy, and the energy dissipates as the wave travels over a distance.

The other determinant is the type of boat and the speed it is
traveling. A fast boat traveling on plane will produce a steep
breaking wave directly behind the boat, with the height depending on
the weight of the boat and its hull shape. Large heavy boats that are
not yet on plane tend to produce a long gradual wake more like an
ocean swell.

I suspect that some of the differences in wave characteristics
you observe might be due to a very strong and shallow
thermocline in the lake. That might act as an artificially
shallow 'bottom' for the waves, changing their character.
At this time of the year, the lake is probably not too
stratified, and the real depth controls the waves.
Later in the summer, it may be very stratified, with
a sharp thermocline at 6 to 15 feet. (I've discovered
those when diving into apparently warm lakes!).

Another phenomenon which probably doesn't have much
to do with your observations is sieching. It is well
described at

http://www.glcclub.com/lifeline/03mar/seiches.htm

Small lakes don't usually have tides---but they can
have seiches, which can show some of the same
characteristics.

Whether it has anything to do with the amount of
dirt in holes, who knows. That phenomenon has
to do with relative compaction---a lesson I learned
as an enginering student trainee with the California
Dept. of Transportation many decades ago.

Mark Borgerson

+ There was something in the water, like more weads or growth, that kept the
waves from building?

+ There was oil on the water. I've heard that even a thin layer of oil will
effect wave action.

+ That normally, but not this day, there is some wind that catches even
little waves and makes them a little more pronounced?

+ That normally, but not this day, there are lots of other waves from either
wind or boats that cause interference with all
the waves and make them all more pronounced?

Just guessing around.

I fish Lanier, where on the lake are you?

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[...]

Thank you. What influences relative compaction?

At Holiday Marina. I don't fish, but if you'd want to hook up and go
for a boat ride--houseboat, runabout, and/or paddle around in a kayak
--let me know. So far I haven't met anyone from a news group, and
that would be cool for me. I'm at R17. Give me a call at 678-714-5764,
or an email at kl...@mindspring.com sometime if you want. If you send
an email be sure to mention something about Lanier or the like so I know
it's not spam, 'cause I get about a hundred spams a day.

Cool, I'll do it. I sometimes put my bass boat in at Aqualand, but
mostly Shoal Creek. Holiday Marina is nice. Do you live on your
houseboat? I'll email you, possibly going fishing next weekend.

1. type and size of material. It's hard to compact a pail of
marbles. But If you add a couple of cups of BBs, they will
disappear into the interstices between the marbles if you
shake the bucket. The same applies to soils and aggregate
mixes. With the proper ratios of fine and coarse materials
you can get better compaction. I spent a lot of time with
a sieve set and shaker determining the relative proportions
of fine and coarse materials in aggregate mixes.

2. Vibration and pressure. Rollers, thumpers and tampers
move the materials into the most dense (compact configuration).

3. Moisture. I guess the water helps the fine particles
infiltrate the interstices and makes it easier for
particles to move around. (It keeps down the dust
on the job site also.)

Mark Borgerson

I wish.

>I'll email you,

Good deal.

Good luck...to you, not the fish :-)

Helping to prove, in part, that you don't care about
"decent lives" for animals, Fuckwit. You'd rather eat
grain-fed beef and cause countless collateral deaths of
animals in the field, than get your fat pimply ass out
of your busted-up barcalounger and catch a fish.

Fuckwit, who is Willie Denson, and why are you using
his phone number? http://tinyurl.com/2ms9e

"Hook up", Fuckwit? Isn't that homo cracker slang for
"an episode of wild-eyed bungholery"?

What's that? You want to "hook up" with some guy on the lake? What's
that all about?

Please don't tell us what you intend to do when you get back to the
houseboat.

Hmmm...I've seen that number somewhere lately. I can't quite recall
where...

You moron - if you dig a hole, there is exactly as much dirt outside the
hole as you dug out of it.

You're really a loose stool, Harrison.