A Study of Weather Routing Considering Real Time Data of Weather and Ocean for Sailing Ship in Coastal Sea Area : Basic Simulation of Ship Positioning by Ship Maneuvering and Experiment by a Real Ship

Abstract

The final objects of this research are the construction of the weather routing system for a relatively small ship sailing in the coastal sea area and the assessment of this system for effects of safety and economic navigation. The weather routing is the optimum navigation based on weather and sea conditions which vary at real time. At first step of these objects, this paper deals with the estimation method of the ship position considering the ship maneuverability. The simulation results of a sailing ship in the tidal current were compared with the field's experimental results using an actual small ship. Comparing the simulated rhumb lines of a ship with the experimental ones, they showed reasonably good agreement. It was concluded that this simulation method for the ship positioning was effective for the weather routing system.