Meteotsunamis like regular tsunamis really don't affect maritime navigation much unless if you are right next to land.
I believe the book you are talking about is called
There is one eyewitness account of a rogue wave by British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton during the 1916 James Caird voyage in the Southern Ocean that perfectly describes the terror of encountering a rogue wave. "On the eleventh day (May 5), a tremendous cross-sea developed and at midnight, while Shackleton was at the tiller, a line of clear sky was spotted between the south and south-west. Shackleton wrote, "I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave. During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days. I shouted For God's sake, hold on! it's got us.' Then came a moment of suspense that seemed drawn out into hours. White surged the foam of the breaking sea around us. We felt our boat lifted and flung forward like a cork in breaking surf. We were in a seething chaos of tortured water; but somehow the boat lived through it, half full of water, sagging to the dead weight and shuddering under the blow. We bailed with the energy of men fighting for life, flinging the water over the sides with every receptacle that came to our hands, and after ten minutes of uncertainty we felt the boat renew her life beneath us." The cooking stove was floating around in the bottom of the boat and portions of their last rations seemed to soak everything. It was 3 a.m. before the stove was finally functional again."
Nice! I think that's the one. I'm gonna have to read it again sometime.
