Paid SpecialistCertificate

ISO 15016 & Speed Trials

How a ship's official speed-power performance is established at sea trials: preparation, conduct, the full correction chain from current to waves to shallow water, and how to read a trial report like someone who knows where the bodies are buried.

Lessons
8
Quiz questions
64
Exercises
1 (10 min)
Calculators
1
Time
About 75 min
Price
€169+ VAT
Certificate
Graded final exam, then a PDF certificate with a number anyone can verify
Who it's for
Superintendents attending trials, performance analysts inheriting trial curves, newbuilding teams negotiating trial conditions: anyone whose later work stands on a trial report.
Assumed knowledge
Comfort with speed-power curves and resistance basics. Our course Ship Resistance Fundamentals covers the physics; the ISO 19030 course covers what happens to trial baselines afterwards.
Taught by

Christos Papandreou

CEO & Founder, Blue Autonomy

  • Naval architect and marine engineer, National Technical University of Athens
  • 15 years of experience in fleet performance and operational data
  • Chief Scientific Officer, NEMO, previously DeepSea Technologies, StormGeo, Athenian Sea Carriers, PwC

Part of the Vessel Performance Analyst I: Measuring Performance specialisation.

What you will be able to do

By the end of the course. Each outcome names the lessons that deliver it, and the final exam samples every one of them.

  1. Explain what a speed trial establishes, who depends on the result (builder, owner, regulator) and where ISO 15016 and the ITTC procedure each fit. Lesson 1
  2. State what trial preparation must fix before the first run (ship condition, site, environmental limits, instrumentation and roles) and justify why each limit exists. Lesson 2
  3. Describe the conduct of the trial: reciprocal double runs, steady approaches, multiple power settings in both directions, and what is measured during each. Lesson 3
  4. Explain each link of the correction chain and its logic: current removed by run geometry rather than a model, wind subtracted as the excess above still-air resistance, waves estimated semi-empirically (the SNNM method's route from research to regulation), then depth, water properties and loading. Lessons 4, 5, 6
  5. Describe how corrected runs are synthesised into the delivered speed-power curve, and what a complete trial report must contain for its three careers: contract, EEDI/EEXI, and the in-service baseline. Lesson 7
  6. Apply a critical-reading checklist to an inherited trial report, informed by how the standard's methods evolved across editions. Lesson 8

Every contract speed, every EEDI and EEXI verification, and every performance baseline a fleet will use for the next twenty-five years descends from a few days of trial runs off a shipyard coast. Remarkably few of the people who later depend on those numbers know how they were produced, which corrections were applied, which were arguable, and where a curve can be quietly flattered.

This course walks the whole trial, in the order it happens: why the trial exists and who needs its numbers (including the regulators); preparing ship and conditions so the measurement is winnable; conducting double runs that cancel what can be cancelled; and then the correction chain, current, wind, waves, shallow water, displacement, that turns raw runs into the calm-deep-water curve everything else trusts. The wave lesson includes the story of how a research formula became part of the standard itself: a rare, instructive case of research becoming regulation in plain sight.

The opening lesson is free to read as a sample. By the end, a trial report should read to you less like a certificate and more like a method statement: checkable, arguable, and occasionally negotiable.

What the course covers

  1. Why Speed Trials Matter More Than Anyone Admits 8 min
  2. Preparing the Trial: Winning Before the First Run 8 min
  3. Conducting the Trial: The Choreography of Double Runs 18 min + exercise
  4. The Correction Chain I: Current and Wind 8 min
  5. The Correction Chain II: Waves, and How Research Became Regulation 9 min
  6. The Correction Chain III: Shallow Water, Water Properties, and Loading 8 min
  7. From Runs to the Curve: Synthesis and the Trial Report 8 min
  8. Editions, Evolution, and Reading a Trial Report Critically 8 min

€169 + VAT

€209.56 including 24% VAT, which is what an individual in the EU pays. Outside the EU no VAT is added. A company in another EU country pays the net price once its VAT number is confirmed in VIES, the EU's register; a company in Greece pays the 24%. Checkout shows the total before you pay.

Paid once, for one person, for as long as the Academy runs: every lesson, the Excel workbook, the final examination and the certificate. Part of the Vessel Performance Analyst I: Measuring Performance specialisation, which costs less than its courses bought one at a time.

Buying online needs JavaScript switched on in your browser. Otherwise write to info@blueautonomy.gr and we arrange access.

All prices · Refunds: 7 days, unless you have started

Common questions

What exactly is included?

8 lessons (about 75 minutes in total), 64 quiz questions with explained answers, and 1 working Excel calculator: Sea-trial double-run analysis.

How much does it cost?

€169 plus VAT, paid once: €209.56 with 24% VAT, which is what an individual in the EU pays; outside the EU no VAT is added, and a company in another EU country with a VAT number valid in VIES pays the net price. That buys every lesson, the Excel workbook, the final examination and the certificate, for one person, for as long as the Academy runs. The course is also part of the Vessel Performance Analyst I: Measuring Performance specialisation, which costs less than its courses bought one at a time. Everything else is on the pricing page.

Is there work to do, or is it only reading?

1 lesson carries a required exercise, about 10 minutes of hands-on work in total. You download that lesson's Excel workbook, follow the numbered steps against the numbers the lesson states, then change one input and watch the answer move. The exercises are where the method stops being something you have read and becomes something you can run; the stated course time includes them.

Do I get a certificate?

Yes. The course ends with a graded final exam, marked on our server rather than in your browser: you see your score and which questions you got wrong, but not the answers, because the questions are drawn from a pool. Pass it and you get a PDF certificate in your name, with a certificate number on it.

That number is the point. Anyone you show the certificate to can check it themselves at academy.blueautonomy.gr/verify, with no account and no email to us: the page states the name, the course and the date we issued it. A certificate nobody can verify is a decorated PDF, and we would rather issue one that stands up.

Can I preview the course?

Yes: the first lesson, Why Speed Trials Matter More Than Anyone Admits, is free to read in full. It is a real lesson, not a trailer: same depth, same quiz.

Do I need prior knowledge?

Comfort with speed-power curves and resistance basics. Our course Ship Resistance Fundamentals covers the physics; the ISO 19030 course covers what happens to trial baselines afterwards.