Ship Handling & Navigation

The major part of the content of this publication is build on the basis of on the invaluable contributions that have been made by the leading experts in the field. The book starts with the historical background providing the information about the developments of mooring and berthing, followed by the statistics of the accidents happened in the course of mooring and berthing, addressed together with the application of risk analysis techniques.

The marine terminal technology is addressed in the next chapter of this volume, and the authors also touch the winch berthing/mooring and recent technical developments. In general, the chapters of this perfectly compiled work are covering such the important aspects of mooring and berthing as fender forces acting on the berthing structures and their prediction, wind fluctuations, impact evaluation methods, modeling of wave propagation any means of computers, field observations, motions of moored vessels, optimization as well as the important safety considerations related to the design of different station keeping systems, motion simulation, probabilistic approach, virtual mass coefficient, long waves and rough weather conditions, plus the effects that the mooring lines commonly have on vessel motions, asymptotic methods, fenders used in different countries, future developments, wave drift forces and many others.

This book belongs to the Springer's famous "Advances in Industrial Control" series. Here are the main chapters included in it - Introduction; Mathematical tools; Modeling and Control Properties of Ocean Ships; Control of Underactuated Vessels and Underwater Vehicles.

The publication offers readers the latest results in the control of underactuated ocean ships as well as numerical simulations of the control systems and efficient designs for their implementation. Most ocean-going ships are commonly underactuated; however, it is considered essential to control their motion when in the real environment. The readers will appreciate the systematic approach applied by the author of this volume since it is based on the very non-trivial coordinate transformations that have been coupled with the advanced non-linear methods.

Subject strategy has been applied to the analysis and development of the numerous control systems with the ultimate goal being to achieve the advanced tasks such as the path- and trajectory-tracking, path-following and stabilization. The book features newly developed efficient designs ready for immediate practical implementation and numerical simulations designed on a scale-model vessels...

The handling and piloting of vessel is something about the individual understandings of the people, based on their practical knowledge. This book written by professional Captain shall be used as a very useful addition to the other materials covering this subject. The text of the publication is remarkably easy to understand and in some cases has been delivered in a form of anecdotes, to make reading more pleasant.

However, the contents of the volume will be useful even for the professional mariners as going through it will let them refresh their knowledge and skills that they might have forgotten. Of course, no one can learn the experience from the book and it is mainly the outcome of the years of doing things either right or wrong – what you do is that you try to avoid repeating the mistakes and you do your best to remember what was done right.

There are many chapters in this book and the author will take the readers from the basic information of handling vessels, through all technical aspects, covering literally everything they should be aware of, up to and including the responsibilities of the pilot related to the vessel and to the port authorities. We recommend this publication to all mariners and students due to the comprehensiveness of coverage and reader-friendliness.

A constantly increasing number of the merchant vessels find themselves chartered to operation in Arctic waters, creating a real and significant demand for the newly constructed ice-classed vessels. Subject requirement is commonly applicable to the vessels that operate in the low temperatures or in the iced waters, with their crew duly trained to man such sort of vessels, and it has already brought about by numerous factors including likelihood of the shipping trade routes that are opening up in the Arctic region, coming on-stream of the terminals in northern regions, and a significant increase in cruise traffic in Arctic region.

All above mentioned factors are directly contributing to the requirements for the ship crews to have access to all required and available technical knowledge from the ice pilots and navigators. Operating a vessel in iced sea required higher standards of training combined with the practical experience. This combination will allow the required development of the skills and professional knowledge and proper understanding in order to competently and efficiently manage the safe passage of the vessel.

Safe navigation of the vessel in ice comes as a result of the experience in the winter navigation combined with the ability of the crew to perform the proper interpretation of the available reports and select the best route on the basis of the behavior and characteristics of the ice...

Every mariner should bear in mind the enormous number of vessels sailing the world’s oceans today when considering the anchors and the associated anchor work. In the past the anchors, together with their auxiliary equipment and arrangements, used to be designed for the vessels of relatively small size and tonnage. They were considered adequate to comply with the specifications in terms of the bottom and weather conditions.

Nowadays, the vessels are of considerably larger size; however, the expectations set for the anchor equipment are more or less same. But for the really big vessels this is not possible and that is why the seamanship methods shall be re-considered. We shall always note that the anchors are there to temporary hold the vessel in position awaiting pilot or berth availability. This book will provide all information needed to arrange the anchor operations in safe and effective manner.

The author has covered such important areas as the types of the ship anchors, anchor chains and windlasses, forcesand holding powers, anchorages including positioning and maneuverability, responsibilities etc. The separate chapter is devoted to the anchoring and mooring methods. Moreover, there is another chapter covering only the large sized vessels. The other items addressed include after-anchoring activities, handling-off anchors, maintenance of the ground tackle, and others.

The present training resource has been specifically published for the young officers who are aspiring to get to the position of the Chief Officer. It will also be useful to the people just promoted to this position. It is a very practical publication which is mainly dealing with the real world of the ocean and vessels rather than purely theoretical; the authors have discussed different important problems that are commonly encountered by the Chief Officers of the vessels in their day-to-day operations.

In fact, there are many publication available today, teaching the students the proper way to perform the numerous tasks that are making up their professional duties. All of them are very helpful when used for the professional training; however, the most important issue is to try to learn how to correctly blend the possible and proper in order to produce a desired feasible result getting us and the vessel through the unscathed days.

That is why we would highly recommend this training course for all people in the industry and definitely to all desiring to become Chief Officers. The content of the volume starts with the description of the position and main responsibilities and duties assigned, and then covering all aspects of Chief Officer's work on board.

The present publication is covering all stages that shall be undertaken when preparing a good passage plan for your ship. The authors have explained all steps involves, from appraisal to the monitoring, in a logical and detailed manner. The volume shall be readily available on the bookshelf of all bridge team members regardless of their skills and professional experience, and it shall be referred to at all times.

The authors made every effort to present the relevant techniques very clearly, making the content easily understandable even to the people with not too much of the practical experience, so it is something to start with. Right now, the national and international requirements have been developed and are available for application to the passage planning. However, this volume provides a ready check sheet to be used by the bridge team to ensure that the high competency standards are met.

The document shall be used together with the Passage Planning Practice by the same authors. The fully worked example has also been provided for illustration. The passage planning using the electronic charts is covered in a separate chapter. There is also a glossary explaining the terminology used throughout the text of the publication.

The passage plan shall be prepared for all vessels and it shall cover the complete voyage starting from the berth of departure and up to the berth of the arrival. Subject plan shall be prepared in strict compliance with the recognized international/national standards and to the standing orders of the shipping company. The content of the plans shall also be following the navigational practices and standards established within the SMS, i.e. safety management system of the company.

The vessels of particular company will most probably use the same format when preparing their passage plans, though the variations commonly cause by the types of cargo and of the vessel, as their as of the commercial agreements are also possible. The passage plan that has been used within this publication is not compliant with the instructions of any specific shipping company and has been presented to serve as an example of preparation. The passage plans usually differ with their layouts.

Generally, the documents specific to the particular shipping company are used when preparing the voyage plans. The authors of this work have used the general layout for the plan, balancing on the information on the charts with the other documents relating to the passage plan. Do not forget to use all documents related to the passage plans together with the navigational charts...