Paid PractitionerCertificate

Vessel Performance in Practice

How to measure what a hull and propeller actually cost you, back it with methods a charterer can check, and act on it, from sea-trial baselines through ISO 19030 speed loss to voyage decisions that survive contact with the weather.

Lessons
10
Quiz questions
83
Exercises
1 (5 min)
Calculators
1
Time
About 90 min
Price
€179+ VAT
Certificate
Graded final exam, then a PDF certificate with a number anyone can verify
Who it's for
Technical superintendents, performance analysts, operations teams: anyone who has to defend a hull-cleaning invoice, a routing decision, or a dry-dock scope with numbers.
Assumed knowledge
Comfort with the idea of a speed-power curve. Our course Ship Resistance Fundamentals covers the physics underneath; it is a helpful warm-up, not a requirement.
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. Defend percentage speed loss against a calm-water baseline as the measuring stick for hull and propeller performance, and judge when a sea-trial curve can, and cannot, serve as the in-service reference. Lessons 1, 2
  2. Compute a percentage speed loss with the ISO 19030 logic (reference and evaluation periods, filtering, expected versus measured speed) and turn the four performance indicators into a cleaning or dry-dock business case. Lessons 3, 4
  3. Identify the sensor and data-handling failures that corrupt performance analysis (log calibration, power measurement, unsteady records), apply the habits that catch them, and quote uncertainty as part of the number. Lesson 5
  4. Quote credible figures for what fouling costs in fuel and emissions, read fouling in the data, and decide when cleaning pays using the maintenance-trigger logic. Lesson 6
  5. Quantify the operational levers: the cube law behind speed and routing economics, the fuel wasted by sail-fast-then-wait against just-in-time arrival and the contractual barriers that keep the waste in place, and the engine-handling discipline that saves fuel and turbocharger stress in heavy weather. Lessons 7, 8, 9
  6. Assemble the course's methods into a performance-management system (roles, review cadence, escalation triggers) that survives crew changes and budget seasons. Lesson 10

Every fleet produces performance numbers. Very few produce performance knowledge: the kind you can take into a dry-dock scope meeting, a charter party dispute, or a budget review and defend line by line.

The difference is method. This course walks the whole chain in the order the work actually happens: where a vessel's baseline comes from and why sea-trial curves deserve more suspicion than they get; how change against that baseline is measured so that two analysts get the same answer; what the four ISO 19030 performance indicators are actually for; which data problems quietly destroy all of it; and then the operational half: fouling economics, weather routing, just-in-time arrival, and what heavy weather does to the engine while everyone is watching the hull.

The opening lesson is free to read as a sample. By the end you should be able to take a year of noon reports and sensor data and answer, with stated uncertainty, the only question that matters: what is this hull costing us today, and what would it be worth to fix it?

What the course covers

  1. Where Performance Begins: The Resistance Floor 7 min
  2. Where Baselines Come From: Sea Trials and Their Corrections 8 min
  3. Measuring Change: The ISO 19030 Speed-Loss Method 15 min
  4. The Four Performance Indicators, and the Decisions They Buy 8 min
  5. Data You Can Trust: Sensors, Steady State, and Uncertainty 9 min
  6. The Fouling Penalty in Hard Numbers 8 min
  7. Weather Routing and the Economics of Speed 8 min
  8. Just-in-Time Arrival: The Savings Waiting at the Anchorage 12 min + exercise
  9. Heavy Weather and the Engine: The Fuel Hiding in the Governor 7 min
  10. From Numbers to Management: Making Performance Stick 8 min

€179 + VAT

€221.96 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.

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

Common questions

What exactly is included?

10 lessons (about 90 minutes in total), 83 quiz questions with explained answers, and 1 working Excel calculator: Just-in-time arrival calculator.

How much does it cost?

€179 plus VAT, paid once: €221.96 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 5 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, Where Performance Begins: The Resistance Floor, 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 the idea of a speed-power curve. Our course Ship Resistance Fundamentals covers the physics underneath; it is a helpful warm-up, not a requirement.