[Posted on September 16th by Bill Stewart]

Seakeeping analysis is of the utmost importance when you are involved in offshore drilling. Once you are out on the open waters, you cannot afford to have anything go wrong. You need to keep your vessel afloat and all of your employees safe. This means that you have to account for everything that could potentially affect your project – and analysis can be done before you leave dry land.

As you already know, ocean weather can be hard to predict. Part of seakeeping analysis is to look at the environment that the vessel has to operate in. This includes looking at wind speed, intensity of waves, and more.

When you know more about the environment, you can make better decisions in terms of what is needed. For example, you can decide on whether single point moorings are going to be effective based upon the size of your vessel, how it can respond to environmental conditions, and other details.

Your ship design needs to be taken into account. Some vessels are going to respond better to sea conditions than others. When there are functions of the ship that allow for you to deal with higher levels of salinity, colder temperatures, or even more intense waves, it can help you to achieve a higher level of performance.

The mission of your project may vary each time you go out onto the water. You may be drilling for oil or you may be surveying. Seakeeping analysis will need to be done each time you go out onto the water because the mission changes. The role of the ship is going to be considerably different if you are drilling because of all of the extra gear that will be in the water.

The analysis is going to tell you everything that you need to deal with vibrations, sea sickness, bow immersion, and everything else. There are limits that need to be established in terms of what your boat can handle.

You cannot take the chance of bringing a boat out onto the water without sufficient analysis. There are too many people in your crew and too many expensive pieces of equipment to go out onto the open waters without the analysis.

Ultimately, the success of your mission is dependent upon the analysis that is done beforehand. You can minimize risks and obtain more equipment prior to leaving land when you have the numbers in front of you. You are able to account for worst-case scenarios and prevent issues from occurring while you are out on the water. It can also help you to have a better return on investment in the end and get additional funding from investors when they see how well you prepare for any mission that you may be given. The analysis is important in any industry, though offshore drilling is a different beast entirely and therefore requires more sufficient data.