Short, practical reads from real fleet work — published here first, then shared on LinkedIn.
Heavy weather penalizes a ship twice — once through wind and wave drag, and again through the rudder corrections needed to hold course. Steering drag grows with the square of rudder angle, and an over-tuned autopilot can quietly add 3–10% to fuel consumption.
In long waves a pitching ship becomes a wave-maker of its own — radiating energy stolen straight from the propeller's thrust. In a Beaufort 6 sea, wave radiation alone can exceed 20% of total resistance.
Before a ship ever pitches or heaves, it loses energy to wave diffraction — short waves shattering against the bow act as an invisible hydrodynamic brake, even when the vessel feels perfectly stable.
Wind drag scales with the square of apparent wind speed — so headwinds punish fuel consumption far more than tailwinds help. Phase 2 of the vessel resistance series looks at the physics, and why wind correction decides whether your data blames the weather or the hull.
Wrapping up the calm-water resistance series and opening Phase 2 — added weather resistance, where the real fuel bill is decided.
Two underestimated sources of drag: underwater appendages (bilge keels, rudders, shafts) and the cost of steering.
Even on a dead-calm sea, moving forward creates an apparent headwind. Why air resistance matters even without weather.
The localised drag at the stern: how pressure recovery along the hull (or the lack of it) creates viscous pressure resistance.
How a ship's hull generates a system of gravity waves as it advances — and why wave-making resistance is a key driver of efficiency.
A technical look at frictional resistance — the ITTC-57 correlation line, Reynolds number, boundary layers, and why it dominates calm-water drag.
Frictional resistance is one of the most underestimated drivers of inefficiency — and why fouling is a performance issue, not just a maintenance one.
Even in calm water, hidden forces fight a ship's progress. A breakdown of the five fundamental components of total resistance.
Is your vessel performance data an asset or a liability? Why data quality is the foundation of compliance in modern shipping.
Poor hull and propeller performance is an underestimated cost drain — ISO 19030 gives operators a disciplined, data-driven way to measure and manage it.
High-quality data is the only foundation for reliable insight — and that takes engineered data pipelines, not just collection.
Hull fouling quietly raises fuel consumption, cuts speed, and undermines compliance — a challenge for technical managers, owners, and charterers alike.
Continuous vessel monitoring is shifting from a nice-to-have to a commercial necessity for performance and decarbonisation.
An article on why energy efficiency in shipping is as much about culture and habits as it is about technology — and how fleet data helps build that culture.