Motion Monitoring and Decision Support During Heavy Transport

During transports of large heavy cargo like jack-up rigs or semi-submersibles, the Motion Monitoring and Captain Decision Support system is a valuable tool to ensure a safe and economical voyage. Using the dynamic characteristics of the vessel in combination with 5-day weather forecasts and design limits like maximum accelerations at the cargo location, roll motion and/or leg bending moment, more and better information is available to the Master to choose a safe heading, speed and route. This way the best knowledge what to expect is contributing to the safety of cargo, transport vessel and crew. Besides use in heavy transport, this system is widely used on container ships, LNG carriers, all kinds of offshore vessels and many other types of floating structures. With daily communication, all important information is made available on internet to the operator’s main office, from which clients are informed with a comprehensive and concise overview of what is happening with their property. After the voyage, clients can be provided with the recorded Motion Monitoring data, which is valuable information for the lifetime assessment. The paper is presenting background information of the Motion Monitoring and Captain Decision Support system, a brief overview of methods used by the system and is describing the relations between transport vessel, main office and client and between the Transport Manual and the system. Results of two independent measurement systems are giving proof of high accuracy of the measurements. Comparison between measurements and predicted vessel response are shown and explained.