Freak or rogue waves are unexpectedly and abnormally large waves in seas and oceans, which can cause loss of human lives and damage to ships, oil platforms, and coastal structures. Evidence of such waves is widely spread around the globe. The present paper is devoted to analysis of the unified collection of freak wave events from different chronicles and catalogues from 2005 to 2021. The considered rogue waves are not measured in situ data, but their descriptions, which have been found in mass media sources and scientific articles, are the data used. All of them resulted in damage to ships or coastal/offshore structures and/or human losses. The collection accounts for 429 events. First, the analysis based on their characteristics taken from the descriptions of the events (including locations, water depth, damages) is carried out. Second, the analysis of wave parameters taken from the climate reanalysis ERA5 is performed. Thus, the most probable background wave parameters at the time of the freak event (including wind speed, gusts, significant wave height, maximum wave height, peak wave period, skewness, excess kurtosis, Benjamin–Feir instability (BFI), and wave spectral directional width) for each freak wave event are determined.

Cases of “freak waves” that occurred in the period from 2011 to 2018 and information on which is currently available are analyzed. In total, 210 cases of abnormally large waves that caused destruction, loss of human life, and injury are identified. A map of events is compiled, the sea depth for each case (deep/shallow waters, the coast) is determined, and the characteristics of freak waves are analyzed.

Pair soliton interactions play a significant role in the dynamics of soliton turbulence. The interaction of solitons with different polarities is particularly crucial in the context of abnormally large wave formation, often referred to as freak or rogue waves, as these interactions result in an increase in the maximum wave field. In this article, we investigate the features and properties of bipolar solitary wave interactions within the framework of the non-integrable Schamel equation, contrasting them with the integrable modified Korteweg-de Vries (mKdV) equation. We show that in bipolar solitary wave interactions involving two solitary waves with significantly different amplitudes in magnitude, the behavior closely resembles what is observed in the mKdV equation. However, when solitary waves have similar amplitudes in modulus, the maximum value of their interaction remains less than the sum of their initial amplitudes. This distinguishes these interactions from integrable models, where the resulting impulse amplitude equals the sum of the soliton amplitudes before interaction. Furthermore, in the Schamel equation, smaller solitary waves can transfer some energy to larger ones, leading to an increase in the larger soliton amplitude and a decrease in the smaller one amplitude. This effect is particularly prominent when the initial solitary waves have similar amplitudes. Consequently, large solitary waves can accumulate energy, which is crucial in scenarios involving soliton turbulence or soliton gas, where numerous solitons interact repeatedly. In this sense, non-integrability can be considered a factor that triggers the formation of rogue waves.