Wake.html

For other uses, see Wake (disambiguation).

The wake of a slow moving boat

Wake of the first boat crossing an alpine lake.

A wake is the region of turbulence immediately to the rear of a solid body caused by the flow of air or water around the body.

In fluid dynamics, a wake is the region of separated flow (usually turbulent)downstream of a solid body moving relative to the fluid, caused by the flow of liquid around the body. In incompressible mediums such as water, a bow wake is created when a watercraft moves through the medium; as the medium cannot be compressed, it must be displaced instead, resulting in a wave. As with all wave forms, it spreads outward from the source until its energy is overcome or lost, usually by friction or dispersion.

Wakes are occasionally used recreationally. Swimmers, people riding personal watercraft, and aquatic mammals such as dolphins, can ride the leading edge of a wake. In the sport of water polo, the ball carrier can swim while advancing the ball, propelled ahead with the wake created by alternating armstrokes, a technique known as dribbling.

The wakes of two slow-moving boats. The nearer boat has made a striking series of ruler-straight waves

Sunseeker Wake on the Indian River looking at the 17th street bridge: scully 2/2008

Wake behind a ferry in the Baltic Sea

Wave cloud pattern in the wake of the Île Amsterdam (lower left, at the "tip" of the triangular formation of clouds) in the southern Indian Ocean

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