Safe-economical route model of a ship to avoid tropical cyclones using dynamic forecast environment

Abstract. In heavy sea conditions related to tropical cyclones (TCs), losses to shipping caused by capsizing are greater than other kinds of accidents. Therefore, it is important to consider capsizing risk in the algorithms used to generate safe-economic routes that avoid tropical cyclones (RATC). A safe-economic routing and assessment model for RATC, based on a dynamic forecasting environment, is presented in this paper. In the proposed model, a ship's risk is quantified using its capsizing probability caused by heavy wave conditions. Forecasting errors in the numerical models are considered in the ship risk assessment according to their distribution characteristics. A case study shows that: the economic cost of RATCs is associated not only to the ship's speed, but also to the acceptable capsizing probability which is related with the ship's characteristic and the cargo loading condition. Case study results demonstrate that the optimal routes obtained from the model proposed in this paper are superior to those produced by traditional methods.