Wind and Wave Climate in Open Sea and Coastal Waters

Wind and wave climate is much region and location dependent, affected by local properties of ocean environment. For safety of world-wide sailing ships knowledge about wind and wave climate is important, not only for open sea, but also in coastal areas. Wind and waves impact ship design, marine operations and they challenge ability of ships to maintain manoeuvrability in sea states. Their description differs in open sea and coastal waters, and recently it has got an attention due to the issue of the 2013 Interim Guidelines by IMO where adverse weather conditions to be used in assessment of ship manoeuvrability have been proposed. The present study shows differences between open sea and coastal water wind and wave climate using hindcast data in the analysis. The description of open sea metocean conditions is limited to the North Atlantic while European waters are used as representative for coastal regions. Correlations between wind speed and significant wave height as well as significant wave height and spectral peak period are established and compare with the ones suggested by the 2013 Interim Guidelines. Challenges in providing metocean description for assessment of ship manoeuvrability and uncertainties related to it are discussed.