Abstract: While the research on water waves modelled by Euler's equations has a long history, mainly in the last two decades travelling periodic rotational waves have been constructed rigorously by means of bifurcation theorems. After introducing the problem, I will present a new reformulation in two dimensions in the pure-gravity case, where the problem is equivalently cast into the form “identity plus compact”, which is amenable to Rabinowitz's global bifurcation theorem. The main advantages (and the novelty) of this new reformulation are that no simplifying restrictions on the geometry of the surface profile and no simplifying assumptions on the vorticity distribution (and thus no assumptions regarding the absence of stagnation points or critical layers) have to be made. Within the scope of this new formulation, global families of solutions, bifurcating from laminar flows with a flat surface, are constructed. This is joint work with Erik Wahlén.