A theoretical approach was applied to investigate the impact of nonlinear standing waves underneath a horizontal deck. A solution was achieved by applying a boundary element method. The model was applied to predict impact pressure underneath a deck. The results show that the wave impact is a very complex momentary process. The influence of initial boundary conditions, wave parameters and deck clearance on impact pressure are analysed. The analysis shows that purely sinusoidal waves of very small amplitude may cause an impact pressure several orders of magnitude higher than a pressure arising from typical applications of a linear wave theory. The analysis shows that all these non-intuitive outcomes arise from the complexity of a wave impact process and its enormous sensitivity to initial conditions what indicates serious difficulties in a reliable prediction of a wave impact for complex wave fields or other structures. Laboratory experiments were conducted to validate theoretical results.