A Comparison and Analysis of Ship Optimal Routing Scenarios considering Ocean Environment

Weather routing of a ship provides an optimal route to the destination by using minimal time or fuel in a given sea condition. These days, weather routing came into a spotlight with soaring fuel price and the environmental regulations of IMO and several countries. This study presents three scenarios of voyaging strategies for a ship and compared them in terms of the fuel consumption. The first strategy fixes the speed of a ship as a constant value for entire sailing course, the second fixes the RPM of the ship as constant for entire course, and the third determines the RPMs of the ship for each segment of the course. For each strategy, a ship route is optimized by using the A* search method. Wind, ocean current and wave are considered as ocean environment factors when seeking the optimal routes. Based on 7000 TEU container ship’s sea trial records, simulation has been conducted for three scenarios, and the most efficient routing scenario is determined in the view of fuel consumption.