Experimental Studies for Stopping and Hard Turning Maneuver of Tow and Towed Vessels

Abstract

A great deal of effort has been made on course stability of tow and towed vessels. What seems to be lacking, however, is investigation for stopping and hard turning maneuver of tow and towed vessels. It is important maneuverability as well as course stability. This paper is intended as an investigation of stopping and hard turning maneuver of tow and towed vessels. A tow line is loose in such a motion. It is hard to control the motion of a towed vessel. This motion will increase the danger of collision between a tow vessel and a towed vessel. We conducted the free running model experiments in a bay. The model experiments were conducted using a 1/12th scale (1.3m) models. Also we performed the simulation studies to investigate these motions. The results of the experiments made improvements in technique of our numerical simulation. In addition, the calsulation results are in good agreement with experiment results.