‘Strength and

Stability of larger ships ’

Alfred Gomez
- Training & Development Manager
 Sea Wave Bending

• A well-loaded ship subjected to minimal stress in still water will encounter cyclical
longitudinal bending when encountering waves at sea.
• The extreme case scenario occurs at sea when the ship encounters waves where the
wavelength is equal to the ship's length and either of the following occurs:
• The ship is caused to sag when the trough is amidships and the wave crests are at the
ends, or;
• the ship is caused to hog when the wave crest is amidships and the troughs are at the
ends.
• Design teams will make assumptions about the wave profile to be encountered by the ship
that will create the worst possible longitudinal bending moments.

What happens when an initially

hogged ship in still water
encountering a `hogging wave' at
sea?
WHAT DO YOU THINK WERE
THE CAUSES WHICH CAUSED
THE MOL COMFORT TO BREAK
INTO TWO?
• These vessels were made from HT steel (light); and were built to sail with adequate
ballast when they were constructed.
• Is this so today? Why?

• In order to further save on weight,

• some DB floors were left out – compensated with floor brackets;
• intermediate floors in the DB were left out (under the containers) ;
• various longitudinals were left out – compensated with tripping brackets;
• reduce the thickness of the bottom plating

• The vessels was fatigued over the years because of the abuse of excessive hog
resulting from improper stowage.

• Improper ballast optimization – Although made to take on adequate ballast, there

was no ballast in the mid-ship tanks in order to reduce the dead weight
• Why do Ship’s staff do this?
• MOL Comfort was in severe hogging condition.
• Significant wave height 6m – head seas
• No ballast water in mid-ship tanks. High frequency of voyages with SWBM almost
100%
• Deflection of 630mm
• Big discrepancy of declared and actual weights & so a high risk of exceeding BM’s
• Minimization of ballast even in the mid-ships area to facilitate low fuel consumption –
trim by bow with ballast in the forepeak tank
• Damage started in the mid-ship section in duct keel
• Many larger ships are sailing with no water ballast, except in forepeak / Forward tanks
for trim
• 8000TEU vessels and larger containerships have greater stability, and therefore
ship’s crew lay lesser emphasis on the need to check stability, hence no ballast.
Induces hogging.
• How do you know your maximum HOG limits?
• There is NO stability booklet which provides container ships with the maximum
HOG limits

• If your vessel is in a severe hog and the SEACOS draughts do not coincide with
the visual draught. What should you do?

• DO NOT SAIL – Optimize ballast to reduce this; Inform SSML, Charterers –

draught survey, check all tanks including bunker distribution.

• Do you have to give into commercial pressure?

• MAX BM = SWBM + Wave bending moments (WBM -> an assumption 20%

above SWBM)

• Up to 4250 TEU -> GM issues. Post panamax -> Stress issues

• 13100 TEUS -> Twisting (torsions) are causing cracks on the accommodation!

• Hanjin Buddha - > Maiden voyage, ballasted the bow and saved 8% on fuel
CHALLENGES FACED
1. Transferring of fuel – The vessel started to list. (4/E informs C/O that he is going to transfer
but forgets to stop the transfer / forgets to shut the valve and the vessel continues to list) .
Further more, this also affects the BM, SF, TM and may endanger the vessels stability. Often
this may be done at night. What else can happen?
This may also increase the draught; especially when the vessel is e.g. going to transit the
Panama canal.
How do we resolve this?

2. Planners request the vessel to reduce the GM so that lashing forces can also be reduced,
so a lesser ballast is taken.
One of our C/O's was told at the last moment that the vessel had to load 3000 mt of cargo
but to keep the draughts the same!

3.Loading aircrafts in no:6 CH increasing the HOG

4. Heeling tanks are normally 90% of total volume which also

increases the HOG How can we resolve this if we have to reduce the BM?
Ballast the Heeling tanks if required
• Consumption of fuel from the mid-ship tanks also increases BM. How is this
resolved to improve the BM?
CE should discuss the distribution with the CO. Daily tool box meetings. If there are
any changes then this should be brought to the attention of the CO. At times the plan
and the final bunker distribution is different and the CO's are unaware of it.

• Often daily bunker soundings of bunker tanks are not being taken but only gauges
are being utilized. How is this resolved?
• On a 4250 TEU a CE came to the CO and asked for the ballast figures since he
suddenly found 400 mt of fuel in excess. Where is this weight coming from? Does it
affect the vessels stability?

• In Singapore and the planner suddenly boards and advises the vessel that they are
to sail in 30 minutes when actually the ETD is 12 hours later! When the C/O
checked the Baplie, all the parameters were out of range!!! How is this possible?
There are 5 MOL ships in line and so the planner produces the wrong plan!
HOW ARE WE DOING IN THIS RESPECT?
• CONTAINER SHIPS ARE GENERALLY IN ‘HOG’ OR ‘SAG’ CONDT?
• “Sea condition” - SEACOS as final departure condition.
• When is “Port condition” utilized?
• Most cases Sea condition BM is in the region of 80% - 90% for ocean passages.

• Deflections are between 30 to 40 cm. in the HOG condition

• Our survey indicates that NOT all ships carry out draught surveys in SEACOS, even
though all say they are doing observed draughts.

• DEADLOAD – SEACOS can calculate the difference between the actual and declared
weights and the actual LCG of the vessel

• Draught survey is not signed by Master’s on all ships.

• A few ships are sailing with no mid-ship ballast water, with BM in the 90% - ENSURE
THAT YOUR MID-SHIP BALLAST TANKS ARE FILLED
• 3 nos. SEACOS reports to be seen and signed by Master, stability, draught, Condition
check.
• Seaspan design verification:
• Well-constructed philosophy – increased margins.
• All vessels are designed based on Class rules required to
provide the sufficient strength for hull structure.
• Seaspan requirements – additional 12-20% over Class requirements is applied to our
vessels’ hull structure calculation;

Plan approval is performed by Seaspan P&T Dept. for the proposed designs including:
• Proficient site teams inspecting vessels construction at every stage
• Comparison to existing vessels of recent design
Loadability optimization / Hydrodynamic optimization / Powering/machinery
optimization
• Structural optimization – feedback on ships in service goes into plan approval of
new vessels;
• Vessel hull failures reports – Hull Structure Monitoring System including newly
introduced GL Hull Manager software;
• Vessel docking reports  - Seaspan Naval Architects attending drydock.
New work orders in NS5 defines tanks for your ship and is to be reported –
CSCL Oceania(1491) - 8500TEU SHI, Long Beach – 9600(1566 SHI),8500 (2081
HHI), 13100 TEU – (2177 HHI)
 The inspections are looking
for signs of deformation,
these signs may be very
small.
Example, in the welds,
they may appear to be
swollen in relation to other
Imagine a flat hand and welds.
then pull your fingers in
and your knuckles rise,
this would be the
potential swelling in the
weld. The area to look is
in the transverse
direction
Adjacent plates may
show very slight rise in
relation to other plates.