the North Atlantic Ocean with a slow-speed freighter, the author 

 took- the opportunity to make systematic wave observations. The 

 voyage started October 14, 1950» at Hamburg, aboard the "Heidberg." 

 She docked at ports in the Caribbean Sea, in the West Indies and 

 in the Gulf of Mexico, and returned through the Straits of Florida 

 to Hamburg again, where she arrived February 3» 1951. Crossing the 

 Caribbean, the QvHf of Mexico and round the West Indies there was 

 often a good opportunity to observe the state of wave development 

 due to different fetches. Besides systematic observations of wave 

 periods and heights together with exact wind measurements, the 

 author provided for special studies on wave groups and for the mak- 

 ing of moving pictiJires of sea waves. Altogether, about 27,000 ob- 

 servations were collected under different conditions in the North 

 Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the values rang- 

 ing up to wind velocities of 22 m/sec. In order to get an idea of 

 the daily North Atlantic weather situation and Its history, two 

 weather maps were drawn daily on the basis of ship reports. The 

 methods of observation are described in more detail in "Deutsche 

 Hydrographische Zeitschrift" [9]) where the observations themselves 

 are also published, 



2) Characteristics of waves in the fully developed state at different 

 wind velocities 



The observations aboard the "Heidberg" related mainly to measure- 

 ments of time intervals between succeeding crests ("periods") and 

 heights of succeeding waves in the complex wave motion, simultaneous 

 with wind measurements by cup-anemometers. Between 70 and 150 or 

 more single measurements of periods at a given locality under nearly 



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