The loss of the  in 1978 provided some of the first physical evidence of the existence of rogue waves. München was a state-of-the-art cargo ship with multiple water-tight compartments and an expert crew. She was lost with all crew, and the wreck has never been found. The only evidence found was the starboard lifeboat recovered from floating wreckage sometime later. The lifeboats hung from forward and aft blocks  above the waterline. The pins had been bent back from forward to aft, indicating the lifeboat hanging below it had been struck by a wave that had run from fore to aft of the ship and had torn the lifeboat from the ship. To exert such force, the wave must have been considerably higher than . At the time of the inquiry, the existence of rogue waves was considered so statistically unlikely as to be near impossible. Consequently, the Maritime Court investigation concluded that the severe weather had somehow created an "unusual event" that had led to the sinking of the München.
In 1980, the MV Derbyshire was lost during Typhoon Orchid south of Japan, along with all of her crew. The Derbyshire was an ore-bulk oil combination carrier built in 1976. At 91,655 gross register tons, she wasand remainsthe largest British ship ever lost at sea. The wreck was found in June 1994. The survey team deployed a remotely operated vehicle to photograph the wreck. A private report published in 1998 prompted the British government to reopen a formal investigation into the sinking. The investigation included a comprehensive survey by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which took 135,774 pictures of the wreck during two surveys. The formal forensic investigation concluded that the ship sank because of structural failure and absolved the crew of any responsibility. Most notably, the report determined the detailed sequence of events that led to the structural failure of the vessel. A third comprehensive analysis was subsequently done by Douglas Faulkner, professor of marine architecture and ocean engineering at the University of Glasgow. His 2001 report linked the loss of the Derbyshire with the emerging science on freak waves, concluding that the Derbyshire was almost certainly destroyed by a rogue wave.
Work by sailor and author Craig B. Smith in 2007 confirmed prior forensic work by Faulkner in 1998 and determined that the Derbyshire was exposed to a hydrostatic pressure of a "static head" of water of about  with a resultant static pressure of . This is in effect  of seawater (possibly a super rogue wave) flowing over the vessel. The deck cargo hatches on the Derbyshire were determined to be the key point of failure when the rogue wave washed over the ship. The design of the hatches only allowed for a static pressure less than  of water or , meaning that the typhoon load on the hatches was more than 10 times the design load. The forensic structural analysis of the wreck of the Derbyshire is now widely regarded as irrefutable.
In addition, fast-moving waves are now known to also exert extremely high dynamic pressure. Plunging or breaking waves are known to cause short-lived impulse pressure spikes called Gifle peaks. These can reach pressures of  (or more) for milliseconds, which is sufficient pressure to lead to brittle fracture of mild steel. Evidence of failure by this mechanism was also found on the Derbyshire. Smith has documented scenarios where hydrodynamic pressure up to  or over 500 metric tonnes/m could occur.
In 2004, an extreme wave was recorded impacting the Admiralty Breakwater, Alderney, in the Channel Islands. This breakwater is exposed to the Atlantic Ocean. The peak pressure recorded by a shore-mounted transducer was . This pressure far exceeds almost any design criteria for modern ships, and this wave would have destroyed almost any merchant vessel.