Weather routing in long-distance Mediterranean routes

Abstract

The selection of ship routes based on modern weather forecasting is a mean of computing optimum shipping routes thereby increasing safety and comfort at sea, cutting down on transit time, and reducing fuel consumption. Further empirical research in the effectiveness of modern weather routing applications is required especially in applications concerning shorter routes in enclosed seas of limited geographical extent such as the Mediterranean Sea. The present study used two climatological simulations to test this state-of-the-art approach to ship routing. Simulations represented two theoretical routes: (1) a route between Italy and Greece and (2) a route between Cyprus and Italy. Both routes were analyzed across varying simulated climatic conditions and the results were compared with those of control routes. Furthermore, results were analyzed in terms of passenger and crew comfort, bunker consumption by ships, and time of crossing. The first simulation showed that weather routing would improve ship performance on 37% of days while the second simulation revealed that weather routing would support ship captains virtually all the time.