Safety Policy to Decrease the Encounters with Ships while Slack Water at KURUSHIMA-KAIKYOU Strait

Abstract

When ships pass through the KURUSHIMA KAIKYO strait, they are forced to alter the channel in accordance with the direction of the tidal stream. Consequently, when it is time of turn of tidal stream, the encounters often occur with ships between going up ships in accordance with the present stream and coming down ships in accordance with the next stream. In the present paper, a result of the investigation into the actual condition regarding with the occurrence of such encounters is described. And authors propose a new safety policy to decrease such dangerous encounters on the basis of the statistical informations from the investigation results. The new policy is that the ships in accordance with the new tidal stream are demanded not to enter the channel for a given period of time after the time of turn of tidal stream and to wait at an appointed place. The availability of this safety measure was verified introducing the marine traffic simulation and it became clear that this new policy is very effective and practical.