Specialisation Practitioner → Specialist
Vessel Performance Analyst II: The Hull in Service
What the hull costs between dockings, how to read it without being fooled, and the decisions that buy the fuel back: trim, confined water, fouling and cleaning, and the docking that resets it.
- Courses
- 4
- Lessons
- 31
- Time
- About 6 hours
- Price
- €629+ VAT
- Assumed knowledge
- Part I, Measuring Performance, or an equivalent working familiarity with the ISO 19030 speed-loss method: the fouling, confined-water and docking verdicts here are read in the percentage speed loss that part teaches you to measure, and the trim and docking decisions are priced in power and fuel, with the cube law carrying one into the other. Our course Ship Resistance Fundamentals is the physics underneath all four courses and is recommended: the trim course cites its calm-water decomposition and its bulb rather than re-teaching either, and the docking course sits its roughness allowance on that course's friction line. None of the four asks for more than a calculator and a spreadsheet: percentages, a cube law and a two-thirds power carry most of it, and the few formulas beyond them (the shallow-water wave speed and its correction, the squat estimators, the canal's limiting speed, the roughness allowance, the interval on a difference of two means) are each worked on a number.
€629 + VAT for the sequence
The 4 paid courses cost €826 bought one at a time; as a specialisation they are €629, a saving of €197 (24%).
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You own this specialisation. Every course in it is open to you.
The second part of the flagship sequence turns measurement into decisions. Part I built the number; this part spends it. It opens with the cheapest lever a ship has, trim and draught, and spends eight lessons on why that lever is oversold and still worth pulling: what a published trim saving is a percentage of, which resistance terms a rotation actually moves, where a trim table came from and where its grid stops answering, and what the ballast and the forgone cargo cost to reach the optimum it recommends. It then takes the ship into the water where a power-speed record is most often misread, estuaries, canals and coastal approaches, and shows how squat, bank effect and the critical-speed wall put a false speed loss on the record that the unwary book as fouling. It then turns to biofouling as the management discipline it has become: coatings chosen for the ship's real trade, the niche areas where the risk hides, inspection and monitoring, in-water cleaning with capture, and the regional regimes that already refuse a dirty hull. It ends in the dock, the one event that reverses the slope the other three courses manage: the wash that comes before any blasting decision, what the preparation grades remove and leave, how roughness becomes kilowatts through the allowance the prediction method prescribes, the propeller and the sensors, the devices that fit the window and the confound they bring, and the two ISO 19030 indicators that say a year later whether the yard delivered.
What you'll learn
- Tell what a published trim saving is a percentage of, and screen a ship for a trim programme out of her own draught history
- Read a trim table, know its validity envelope, and price the trim a cargo plan can actually deliver
- Price a displacement change through the Admiralty relation, and set the draught lever against the trim lever on the same hull
- Recognise a shallow-water signature in a performance record and keep it out of the fouling ledger
- Choose an anti-fouling system for the operating profile the ship really has, and defend the choice over a docking cycle
- Decide when fouling justifies an in-water clean, price it, and run the cleaning event so it survives a port's scrutiny
- Read a yard's surface-preparation clause for what it leaves under the paint, price the full blast against the spot repair over the docking interval, and judge the docking a year later by the two ISO 19030 indicators written for it
The sequence
Each course stands alone; this order is the order the knowledge builds.
How the courses build on each other
The four courses are ordered by how easily the lever is pulled, and by what each needs from the one before. Trim and Draught Optimisation comes first because it costs nothing but a cargo plan and a reason: the course starts by asking what a published saving is a percentage of, so that fifteen per cent, nine per cent and half of one per cent stop reading as a contradiction and start reading as three different questions, then builds which resistance terms a rotation is allowed to touch, what separates the trim on the loading computer from the trim the water sees, where a table came from and where its grid stops, whether a claimed three per cent can be tested against the noise floor at all, what the ballast and the forgone cargo cost to reach the optimum, and finally the larger lever underneath it, draught and displacement. Shallow-Water Effects comes second because it answers the question the trim course hands on, 'what trim in this depth?' (dynamic trim is squat wearing another name), and because it teaches the analyst's most important reflex in this part: a one-signed false speed loss from geometry looks exactly like fouling, and four defences separate them. Biofouling Management comes third because it is the decision with the most money and the most paperwork attached, and because by then the reader can tell a fouling slope from a trim change or a confined-water leg. The Docking: Buying the Hull Back closes the sequence because it is the only event that reverses the slope the other three manage, and because it needs everything before it: the speed-loss trend to price a preparation scope, the fouling discipline to know what the wash and the coating are for, and the measurement habits to judge the yard a year later. The speed-loss machinery itself is not re-taught: the ISO 19030 course in Part I owns it, and every course here cites it.
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Paid Practitioner
Trim and Draught Optimisation
The cheapest lever a ship has, priced honestly: what a published trim saving is a percentage of, which resistance terms a rotation actually moves, the trim the water sees rather than the one on the loading computer, where a table comes from and where its grid stops, whether three per cent can be tested at all, what the ballast costs in cargo, and the larger lever underneath, draught.
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Paid Practitioner
Shallow-Water Effects
What the seabed does to a ship once it is close enough to matter: squat, bank effect, the critical-speed wall, the canal that sends a ship's own waves back at it, and the muddy bottom that is not where the chart says. The physics first, then the numbers, then what they do to a performance analysis that was calibrated in deep water.
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Paid Practitioner
Biofouling Management
Fouling as a discipline, not a diver call-out: the biology and the fuel bill, the IMO 2023 guidelines, coatings and niche areas, inspection regimes, in-water cleaning with capture, and the road from voluntary guidance to a mandatory regime.
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Paid Specialist
The Docking: Buying the Hull Back
The one event that can reset a hull's surface, run as the performance decision it is: the wash that comes before any blasting choice, what Sa 1, Sa 2 and Sa 2½ actually remove and leave, why water jetting cuts no profile, how average hull roughness turns into kilowatts through the allowance the ITTC method prescribes, the propeller grade that pays back in days, which devices fit the dock window and which confound it, and the two ISO 19030 indicators that say afterwards whether the yard delivered.
The specialisation certificate
Every course above ends in a graded final exam and a certificate. Hold the certificate for every course, and a capstone project unlocks: one scenario that draws on the whole sequence, marked on our server. Pass it and you get a second, separate certificate for the specialisation itself, naming every course it comprises: its own number, verifiable the same way.
Who teaches this
Common questions
Do I need Part I first?
Not strictly: each course stands alone and opens its first lesson free. But the fouling, confined-water and docking verdicts here are read in the percentage speed loss that Part I teaches you to measure, so readers who arrive without it will find themselves taking the number on trust.
Which courses are free?
None of the four: this is a paid sequence. Each course opens its first lesson free as a sample, and the specialisation certificate comes with the capstone, once all four course certificates are held.
How much time should I plan for?
Each course states its reading time on its page, and the sequence total is shown above. Four courses and 31 lessons at a lesson a day is four to five weeks; the quizzes make it easy to stop and resume.