The snapshot blinks between waves should work well. That's what I do.
Notice though that in high waves, your sub deck and/or sail is only visible in the troughs between the waves. For the enemy to see you, they would have to be able to see down into the trough from a distance.
I suspect this is why the game designers created the wave model the way it is so vessels are riding a base level "depth" and the waves are built up upon this base level and the vessel never really changes height to climb up onto a wave, but rides the bottom of the low waves while the high ones slosh over (with a little "porpoise" pitch action thrown in.) In other words, you never really increase height by riding up onto the top of a wave. Rather, you ride accross the bottom of the base line and waves wash over the top of you.
This model simplifies the sighting calculations for the game designer. They only need to check if part(s) of the model appear above the wave height based on the base depth comparison. They don't also have to figure out if your riding the top or bottom of a wave since you are always riding the bottom and the bottom is your depth.
I've had successful attacks against convoys by constantly checking the distance to the closest contact and using the distance my sub parts are exposed above the average waves as my exposure height. Needless to say, the closer you are to the target, the more exposed you are. At night in rough weather and fog, I've been able to get very close to 1000 yards to low-skill merchants as long as an aware escort wasn't close enough to spot me with their extended awareness level. If you are that close to two or more merchants, the sighting probability goes up.
-Pv-
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