Abstract <p>The present paper is devoted to the study of the dynamics of narrowband wave fields within the nonintegrable Schamel equation, which plays an important role in plasma physics, wave dynamics in metamaterials, and electrical circuits. A Monte Carlo approach is used to obtain a large number of random independent realizations of the wave fields, allowing for an investigation of the evolution of the following statistical characteristics: spectra, moments, and distribution functions. The simulations are conducted for different values of the Ursell number (the ratio of nonlinearity to dispersion) to study the impact of nonlinearity and dispersion on the processes under consideration. The features of freak waves appeared in the random wave fields are discussed.</p>