81012983

open access

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A development of weather forecast and optimal ship routing

English (英語)

Journal of Maritime Researches

8

25-41

神戸大学大学院海事科学研究科附属国際海事研究センター

2018-08

2021-10-25

It is inevitable for vessels to forecast the influences in given weather conditions, such as waves, winds, currents, etc. Seafarers used to estimate the change of sea conditions from their experience with intuition, when the weather forecasting was not practically in use. The optimal weather routing has been studied from 1950s by combining the numerical weather forecasting. Major shipping companies already introduced the optimal routing mainly for container vessels, which are operating in tight schedule. It consists of the weather forecasting and estimation of ship performances in actual seas. The weather forecasting has been developed remarkably in recent decades, because of the engineering innovation of computer technology. Global weather information is released from some meteorological institutions, and can contribute to safe operation of vessels. On the other hand, there are some differences of estimated results in each meteorological institution. This point could affect the accuracy of optimal ship routing, such as the voyage time, voyage route, and fuel consumption, etc. In this study, the optimal shipping routes are numerically simulated for a container vessel in the North Pacific using the latest weather reanalysis database with the isochrotone method. The difference of optimal ship routing is compared from the spatial and time resolutions in different seasons. The effectiveness and future subjects to improve the optimal routing are considered at the end.

numerical simulation

紀要論文