With Wakes you can create boat wakes, add additional turbulence to an ocean, or generate bubbling and ripples.
A Wake is a fluid container with a Spring Mesh solver. Wake fluids do not use the Navier Stokes solver like regular fluids, but use the new Spring Mesh solver. A fluid emitter is used to drive the motion of the Wake fluid.
You can use Wakes with only Ponds or Oceans.
Ocean Wakes differ from Pond Wakes. For Oceans, a Wake is a fluid texture with a Spring Mesh solver that adds additional displacement and/or foam to the Ocean shader. For Ponds, a Wake is a 2D fluid with a Spring Mesh solver that is rendered directly as a fluid.