Abstract
This study aims at the safe navigation of a ship moving in the proximity of the bank under steady wind pressure. A directional stability criterion is presented for ships moving in a channel taking the wind effect into account. The wind effect on the check helm required for course keeping in the channel and the directional stability is investigated using the new criterion for a container ship with 136.7 m in length moving in the channel where the representative width is 89 m. The check helm angle reaches to 15 deg in wind velocity 9.6 m/s and wind direction 90 deg at low tide. Then, 9.6 m/s becomes the limiting wind velocity if the limiting rudder angle is assumed to be 15 deg. On the other hand, the wind effect on the directional stability is small. The studied container ship can navigate safely in the channel under the wind velocity which is smaller than 9.6 m/s.
