Methodology for Controlling the Ship’s Path during the Turn in Confined Waterways

Abstract

One of the basic tasks in the shipping industry is to ensure safe manoeuvring and navigation through channels and confined waterways. This paper has presented a practical and theoretical approach to the assessment of safe manoeuvring in waterways based on knowledge and experience. Experienced mariners had to sail through an approach to Thorn channel in a calm weather using their own knowledge and methods to determine variable angles of rudder deflection. The navigational performance has been determined in terms of deviation from the intended path. The results have indicated the difference in distances of the ship paths between all respondents as compared to the intended path. Besides determining the ship’s turn path, it is necessary to consider the factor F which represents the distance between the WOP and the beginning of the actual turn and the width of the swept track. However, the aim of this paper is to present a control methodology for mariners while working at sea.

Development of WOP Mathematical Model for Optimum Track-Keeping. A Ship Simulation Study Using VLCC, Focusing on Hard Over Rudder Turning Circle with Three Stages of Validation Analysis

“…However, sometimes, due to a late course change, the ship will overshoot from the track, resulting in a cross-track distance, as seen in Fig. 2 [8], [9]. As a result, a wheel over point (WOP) must be measured precisely in advance and labelled on the charted course to denote the point of change [4].…”

“…Th e WOP may help to reduce fuel usage by optimising the vessel's voyage by keeping an optimal path [11]- [13]. Most signifi cantly, it makes a substantial contribution to the ship's navigational safety [9]. Inadequate understanding of the ship's turning capability and manoeuvrability may result in a major catastrophe [14].…”

“…The constant radius turn (CRT) technique calculates the rate of turn (ROT) required for a fixed radius turn [9], [11], [37], [38]. The technique requires a rate of turn indicator (ROTI), which is a navigation instrument used to indicate the ship's turning rate in degrees per minute and designed to observe the turning rate [38].…”

Systematic Literature Review on Wheel-over Point Techniques for Efficient Ship Manoeuvre

“…The occurrence of XTD at the open sea is not alarming, although shipowners may find it unpleasant as it increases fuel consumption (Reid, 1978). However, looking from the vessel-safety point of view as required by IMO (Srivastava, 2007), the XTD can be considered to be a critical aspect in navigation (Vujičić et al, 2018), as reported in a few cases where accidents happened due to ships manoeuvring off-track (Gale & Patraiko, 2007;MAIB, 2015;Steamship Mutual, 2014;TAIC, 2016). Furthermore, if navigators do not understand the fundamentals of hydrodynamics, overshooting a planned course may result in disaster.…”

“…WOP may also save fuel consumption by optimising the vessel's journey by maintaining an ideal course (Chaal, 2018;Lu et al, 2015;Reid, 1978). Most significantly, it has a substantial effect on the ship's navigational safety since failing to identify WOP was identified as one of the contributing elements to the ship's off-course manoeuvring-related disaster (Kamis et al, 2022a;Vujičić et al, 2018).…”