Abstract
A wave-piercing catamaran was developed in Australia, and has been increasing in size for these twenty years. The first largest 112m wave-piercing car-ferry was built in Australia, and introduced in Hakodate-Aomori route in September 2007. The ship is made of Aluminum alloy and much lighter than a conventional mono-hull ferry. The ratio of gross tonnage to displacement of the ship is about four times of the conventional one. This means that the ship has small displacement, shallow draft and large superstructure. This may cause different seakeeping characteristics of the ship from conventional mono-hull ships. In the present paper, the seakeeping performance of a 112m wave-piercing catamaran in heavy waves are experimentally investigated for all wave directions. The experimental results are compared with calculated results for conventional mono-hull ferries. The comparisons reveal that the ship motion performance of the wave-piercing catamaran in heavy waves is better than those of conventional mono-hulls, particularly in pitch and roll motions. The contribution of the unique center-bow of the catamaran to the seakeeping performance is also discussed.
