Riding the Bow Wave

[geonuc]

So, I'm reading a submarine blog - a blog written by an ex-submariner, not an underwater blog - and there's a post about how dolphins like to play with the submarine when it's on the surface. We've all seen videos of this - the critters like to 'ride the bow wave'. Surfing, essentially. They do it with all large boats/ships.

This post was from a guy who said when he was standing OOD watch while the boat was coming in to port, he not only noticed the dolphins coming from far away to ride the bow wave, but also that they liked a particular speed. Too slow and they got bored; too fast and they couldn't keep up. So he adjusted the sub's speed to their sweet spot (within the limitations of schedule and protocol).

I'm thinking - how cool is that? It's one thing to operate your billion dollar warship in such a way not to harm or annoy animals, but this guy operated the boat in a way to cater to the dolphins' amusement.