Note that the average values give very good agreement. They seem 
to remove the remaining non-linear effects in the pressure record 
explainable by a tendency toward a trochoidal forn. 
A very simple statistic therefore describes many of the features 
of the record. Were it actually a wave record, this statistic could 
have been forecasted by forecasting the power spectrum and integrat- 
ing the power spectrum of the wave record over # and © to find Bax’ 
Consequently, without even mentioning the significant height and 
period, important information can be obtained about the forecasted 
waves. 
If the above record had been a wave record, it would be possible 
to predict, for example, that a given spark plug on a recorder like 
the one developed by the Beach Erosion Board (Caldwell [1948]) would 
be submerged for 4.90 minutes during the next twenty-five minutes, 
and the actual observed time would have been 4.63 minutes. if the 
waves were passing, Say, an oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 
(and if the rig could be located at a point compared to the dimensions 
of the waves), then the length of time the water would cover any given 
mark on the rig could be predicted. These considerations would not 
be valid for a free floating object like a life raft because it moves 
horizontally with the waves, but it is not too difficult to visualize 
extensions which would yield information on the motion of the raft 
above and below mean sea level also. A ship with a length comparable 
to the wave lengths associated with the spectral periods involved 
in the power spectrum would have a different up and down motion, but 
again the Gaussian character of the motion would have to be true and 
statements similar to the above could be made about the ship's motion. 
84 
