The exponentiated Gumbel (EG) distribution has been proposed as a generalization of the classical Gumbel distribution. In this paper we discuss estimation of T -year return values for significant wave height in a case study and compare point estimates and their uncertainties to the results given by alternative approaches using Gumbel or Generalized Extreme Value distributions. A jackknife approach is made to investigate the sensitivity of the parameter estimates and various model selection criteria are employed to compare the models. When examining Anderson-Darling distances between samples and extreme- value distribtions, the EG distribution turns out to give the closest fit. However, general recommendations whether to use Gumbel or EG distribution cannot be given.