Experimental study of the wind effect on focusing of transient wave groups

One of the popular machanisms of the freak waves phenomenon is the dispersive focusing of transient wave groups. In all published theoretical and experimental papers the surface gravity waves are considered as an ensemble of free waves. This paper reports on a series of experiments conducted in the large wind-wave tank od IRPHE to study the wind effect on the generation of freak waves. A suitable theory is presented to explain and discuss the experimental results