Practice Study on Operation Evaluation and Limitation for Merchant Ships in Polar Water

All environmental hazards impact safety for polar ships, especially polar merchant ship with light ice-class. In order to provide a systematic guidance to deal with any situation during polar operation, International Maritime Organization (IMO) raised mandatory requirements of “Polar Water Operation Manual”(PWOM) in Polar Code. This paper focuses on how to determinate operational evaluation and limitation for the PWOM, which is an important measure to avoid polar ships exceeding operational capability. Features of polar navigation are summarized based on the former polar navigation experience, and typical risk model is set up to describe the process of operation evaluation. The operational limitation is analyzed to indicate the actual capability and limitation as the ship encounters unexpected incident in polar waters. In conclusion, the operation procedure is studied to give a detailed technical proposals for the whole polar operation, which is the main component of PWOM. The outcome may provide helpful to arctic shipping of merchant ships.