What’s the Difference Between Voyage Optimization and Weather Routing?
You may find it difficult to navigate the differences between voyage optimization and weather routing, which are sometimes used together. Doesn’t matter if you are a rookie or an expert, this post will help you get a grasp on the two concepts.
What Is Weather Routing?
The goal of weather routing is to obtain optimal speed in order to complete the journey as energy efficiently as feasible while ensuring the safety of the ship, crew, and cargo. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has said that using weather routing services may cut fuel use by up to 3%, and even more with bigger boats.
Some still believe there is a contradiction between being environmentally conscious and running a successful company. The huge verified fuel savings obtained by weather routing, on the other hand, shows that being sustainable has a financial advantage.
Weather routing has everything to do with keeping an eye on severe weather and other factors that could affect
What is Voyage Optimization?
Voyage Optimization is an easy-to-use solution for improving operational efficiency by optimizing route and speed profiles for any sea passage. Utilizing the route intelligence of Voyage Optimization, manufacturers and ship managers can reduce fuel consumption by 3.4 to 5.6% less per voyage.
Voyage optimization is a form of dynamic routing. It consists of applying the routing algorithm to all available data, such as vessel movements, sea state and forecast conditions to generate the optimal sailing route and speed profile. All calculations are real-time and can be adapted according to operational needs.
Weather Routing and Voyage Optimization
Every year, almost 5,000 containers are lost at sea because weather routing service providers claim to be able to save fuel, increase safety, and be more dependable.
Over the previous decade, the P&I club has seen a 33% increase in overall container losses and a 270% increase in severe partial losses. This is what one research discovered: Over 40% of ships operated on international liner routes arrived one or more days late.
Weather routing companies frequently make it difficult for ship owners, operators, and charterers to select the correct service provider and degree of technology because they overstate their capabilities and fail to back them up. Because of increased fuel prices and the new emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ship performance has become more significant.
Weather routing can reduce fuel consumption and GHG emissions by 2% to 4%, but a new IMO research shown that technical and operational approaches like as speed control and fleet planning can also make a significant impact.
To achieve these types of advances, there must be weather-related changes in the marine environment. Technology that relies on speed reduction curves to prevent poor weather is unable of keeping up with new operating requirements such as slow steaming and virtual arrival.
Weather routing isn’t always the greatest method to increase marine transportation safety and efficiency, therefore it’s time to think about new strategies to save travel time.
The Limitations of Weather Routing
It can be difficult to keep up with the wind and waves, as well as navigation concerns and worries of heavy weather damage caused by excessive ship motion and propeller racing, which can induce both unintended and intentional slowing.
If the weather routing advisory service fails to account for both involuntary and voluntary speed decreases when predicting dead-reckoned ship positions in conjunction with the passage of weather systems, it might put the ships at risk.
There are several examples, such as the well-known m.v. Derbyshire case. As Typhoon Orchid approached, the master realized that his ship would be hindered by intense vibrations created by growing waves. Would he have still attempted to flee Typhoon Orchid?
Weather routing software cannot predict if a Parametric Roll would result in high accelerations. Can a route be proposed for APL China even if it is unaware of the risk? Can weather routing guidance be used if it is difficult to estimate where a ship will be with respect to a storm track based on basic speed reduction curves?
The Limitations of Voyage Optimization
Ship routing algorithms have received a lot of interest in recent years. The Dijkstra Algorithm is frequently used in weather routing software to make it appear as though a ship is departing with full power towards an arriving port while really traveling in opposite directions. It performs so-called “isochrones” at each time interval (for example, six hours) until the ship arrives at its destination.
Then, starting with the earliest probable arrival time, a tons-per-day rate is utilized to calculate how much gasoline the automobile will consume for the day. The shortest duration indicates the least amount of gasoline utilized, according to this theory. The solution is very quick when just speed reduction curves are used and no ship motion responses or engine overload are taken into account.
One of the most significant aspects of speed management is ignored by the algorithm, which is unfortunate because it is critical. In order to go around or “hug” in poor weather, ships may slow down and wait for storms to pass before proceeding. Furthermore, when it is properly linked with the way the ship moves and the way the engines function, it greatly decreases the chance of severe weather damage.
When speed and direction are included, solving the route optimization problem becomes more complicated. Because they only function in one dimension, the fundamental speed reduction curves employed in a weather routing algorithm cannot determine the optimal one. This means that reducing the amount of fuel utilized for a certain arrival time is impossible without exceeding the allowable operating limitations.
The Takeaway
Speed management technology is ideal for ships that operate at high speeds, as well as those that carry valuable or dangerous cargo. Traditional weather routing tools aren’t appropriate to use while operating at slow speeds because they don’t take motion and other elements into account. Unless engine overloads are accounted for in an analysis, the most economical speed is not always the lowest one. Keep up with the latest weather routing and voyage optimization news today by following our blog.
Guest writer, Bash Sarmiento