Abstract
The wheelhouse front glass of a Fore-Bridge-Ship (Ro-Ro Ship) was broken by the shipping of water in rough seas, and then the flooding of seawater into the wheelhouse caused the uncontrollable condition of the ship. The hull which was entered into the floating condition rolled severely, and the heavy rolling caused secondary damage such as the collapse of a lot of cargo. It was an incredible accident because the height of bow freeboard was about 2.5 times higher than the standard height of minimum bow freeboard regulated by the International Load Line Convention(1966). And it would be also difficult for navigators to imagine a great deal of seawater flooding into the wheelhouse because the front glass was positioned at about 20m height above the sea surface. In this paper, we carried out the evaluation for the safety navigation of the Fore-Bridge-Ship numerically against ship's speed and encountering angle to the wave in each sea state of rough sea, by using the integrated seakeeping performance index (ISPI) which is able to evaluate synthetically the safety operation of ships. And then the problem on the application of the past criteria proposed as the safety navigation of a merchant ship was clarified by inquiring the dangerousness of the shipping of water at her bow deck, which caused the breakage of the wheelhouse front glass.
