Numerical Study of a Fishing Vessel Operating in Partially Ice Covered Waters

The Arctic ocean has been the focus of increasing activities in oil and gas, marine traffic and fisheries as the resources in the Arctic area becomes more attractive for exploitation. There have been several studies on the response of ships and structures in ice covered waters, mainly for oil and gas applications. This paper presents a scenario simulation model for fisheries, crab pot retrieval, in partially ice covered waters. Snow crab fisheries in the Barents Sea is an ongoing commercial activity where partial ice covers may drift over crab pots which need retrieval. This scenario is unique in the sense that the ship and ice can be expected to experience wave forcing in addition to the ice–structure interaction. The complexity of such scenarios favor simplified models and a coupled simulation model consisting of ship hydrodynamics, ice hydrodynamics, ice–ice and ice–ship interactions. A case vessel is presented together with a scenario simulation model which is used to assess the ice impact forces during operations and the amount of ice interaction which can be expected in the region where the pot string is retrieved from the ocean.