North Australian FISH FINDER forums

They exist alright and "rogue waves" come about as a result of 2 main causes (along with an often-used excuse).

The most usual genuine cause is an unfortunate coincidence of wave/swell timing which (when combined) gives a resulting "rogue wave" that can be up to twice the height of waves being experienced.

The more dramatic and "fatal" cause is the same coincidence but in an existing "confused sea". A "confused sea" is designated as dangerous and the sea action describing it is the highest on the Beaufort scale water description.

Some of you may recall a Canadian singer called Gordon Lightfoot. One of his more popular songs was The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

A song about a vessel and all of its crew that were victims of such an incident in Lake Superior (Great Lakes) in 1975 during a storm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald

In that storm, vessels were subject to confused seas in a lake (albeit a big lake) where few had been experienced before and the rest is history (as they say).

The description "rogue waves" is also often given by small vessel operators who attempt to blame nature for their own boating mistakes.