1. Context and multidisciplinary aspects

The best-known extreme events obviously come from the maritime world, where rogue waves - described as veritable walls (or holes) of water, or as a succession of several gigantic waves (the "three sisters" phenomenon) - have been part of folklore for several centuries, and are held responsible for the disappearance and destruction of numerous boats. In this field of hydrodynamics, sailors' tales have long told of monstrous waves "suddenly appearing and disappearing without a trace", but without any direct or statistical measurements to attest to their presence. In the 20th century, however, the first quantitative measurements proved the existence of such phenomena, as shown in figure 1 b with the recording of the famous solitary wave of New Year's Eve 1995, captured by the Draupner oil rig and showing...