Impacts of Speed and Spacing on Resistance in Ship Formations

Sailing in formation has the benefits of drag reduction. In current studies of hydrodynamic analysis of ship formations, the impacts of speed and spacing between adjacent ships on total resistance are seldom considered. To estimate the weight of different factors in formation on total resistance variation, the impacts of speed, longitudinal distance, and transverse locations on the observed total resistance of formations are investigated by analyzing hydrodynamic data in tandem, parallel, and triangle formation. The relation between resistance variation and speed is revealed. The regression analysis results on different formations indicate the differences between longitudinal spacing and transverse impacts. The regression formulation can be adopted to predict total resistance in formations.