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The generation and evolution of ocean waves by wind is one of the most complex phenomena in geophysics, and is of great practical significance. Predictive capabilities of respective wave models, however, are impaired by lack of field in situ observations, particularly in extreme Metocean conditions. The paper outlines and highlights important gaps in understanding the Metocean processes and suggests a major observational program in the Southern Ocean. This large, but poorly investigated part of the World Ocean is home to extreme weather around the year. The observational network would include distributed system of buoys (drifting and stationary) and autonomous surface vehicles (ASV), intended for measurements of waves and air-sea fluxes in the Southern Ocean. It would help to resolve the issues of limiting fetches, extreme Extra-Tropical cyclones, swell propagation and attenuation, wave-current interactions, and address the topics of wave-induced dispersal of floating objects, wave-ice interactions in the Marginal Ice Zone, Metocean climatology and its connection with the global climate.

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In February 2017, a buoy was deployed south of New Zealand at about 52° South. In July the buoy broke its mooring and started drifting, still transmitting the essential information. During its short mooring period it also measured a particularly high wave. We present a detailed analysis of the storm, the measured and modelled spectra, allowing an analysis of the probability of the occurrence of single large waves. The availability of the data in both moored and drifting conditions allows the accuracy of the measurements in the two different situations to be quantitatively discussed. 1-Introduction In this paper we focus our attention on the Southern Ocean. Despite its large expanse, the importance role it plays in the global climate system, and the presence of very large storms, the Southern Ocean has received comparatively little attention. This was, at least in part, due to a lack of observations, with almost no observations of wind and waves available prior to the satellite era. Altimeter and scatterometers now provide invaluable data in the region, however, due to its remote location and harsh working environment, there still exists only a handful of deployed in-situ instruments. In this paper, we focus on one such mooring, recently deployed at about 52°S. More specifically we examine the case of a particularly large wave, measured soon after the buoy deployment. The discussion centers first on the storm itself, then on the conditions that characterise the region. This initial, relatively short dataset (14 months of data) has an almost unique characteristic that allows a kind of analysis rarely performed: part with the buoy

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