Silloth lifeboat was out on the very high tide this morning. The sea was very stormy. These two photographs show the boat launching itself off one of the waves. I think that some aspects can be explained by Newton's First Law. This says that if no other force acts on an object it carries on in a straight line at constant speed if it is already moving. Let's assume that the boat is not accelerating. When the wave falls away beneath it, the boat carries on through the air as shown. Now actually gravity acts on the boat pulling it down as well, so instead of a straight line we'll get a parabola. The boat must be moving faster than the waves for this to happen.
