International Journal

on Marine Navigation

and Safety of Sea Transportation

Volume 2

Number 1

March 2008

Use of Simulation for Optimizing Manoeuvres

in Constantza Port

E. Barsan

Constantza Maritime University, Romania

ABSTRACT: Constantza Maritime University had won a two year research grant, financed by the Romanian

Government through the National University Research Council, for optimization of the Constantza port

fairway and assessment of maneuvering procedures for handling of very large ships. The actual port fairway

could not ensure safe navigation for ships with a draught greater than 13 meters, and also in the container

terminal area, the actual maximum depth is 11meters. In a port without tide, the unique solution is to deepen

and enlarge the existing fairway. The aim of our paper is to present the working hypothesis and methodology,

which we used for creating the ship handling simulator maneuvering scenarios for very large ships. Validation

and assessment of these scenarios, in order to establish the optimum shape and dimensions of the redrawn

fairway, were done in cooperation with Constantza port pilots and VTS operators.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Port of Constantza offers a lot of advantages,

among which, the most important are:

− good connections with all modes of transport:

railway, road, river, airway and pipelines and

direct access to the Pan-European Corridor VII,

through the Danube Black Sea Canal, providing a

shorter and cheaper waterway transport towards

Central Europe than the routes using the ports in

Northern Europe;

− the new container terminal on Pier II South,

increasing the container operating capacity and

will be in future expansion;

− multi-purpose port with modern facilities and

sufficient depth to accommodate the largest

vessels passing through the Suez Canal;

− Ro-Ro and Ferry-boat terminals suitable for the

development of short sea shipping serving the

Black Sea and the Danube countries.

The total area covered by the Constantza Port is

36.26 sq Km, with 13.9 Km of breakwaters, 29 Km

quay length and 132 berths. Depth at berths is

between 7 and 16 meters, allowing operation of

ships up to 150000 dwt (NCMPAC SA, 2004).

The Port of Constantza has two distinct areas,

called Constantza North and Constantza South

(figure 1). The Constantza North area is the old port,

which underwent developments and expansions until

1980. The Constantza South area is the area built

between 1980 and 1990, with new investments and

facilities opened after 2000. In the Constantza South

area, new infrastructure extensions and investments

in port facilities are expected in the near future and

until 2015.

2 CONSTANTZA PORT DEVELOPMENT

STRATEGY

After ten years stagnation, a few major investments

were made in the Constantza Port during the last 4

years, mainly in the South area. We will mention

hear the new container terminal on Pier II S, grain

terminal on Pier I S, and the Passenger terminal at

berth no.0.

For the next year, Port of Constantza will face

new developing challenges, in order to build new

facilities: the barge terminal, Grain Terminal, LPG

Terminal, completion of the North Breakwater,

Waste Management facilities, International Business

Centre. Locations of these new facilities were

established in the Constantza South area.

In order to accomplish these goals, massive

infrastructure works must be undertaken. Practically,

an artificial island must be built in the middle part of

the Constantza Port and in the southern part of the

port, the new quays must be gained from the sea

(figure 2).

The quays of the artificial island will

accommodate deep draught vessels, having depths of

14.5-19.0 meters. In all the south area, depth of

water will be increased, in order to allow access for

bigger ships, including in the barge basin and barge

canal, where de depth of water will be 7.0 meters.

Fig. 1. Constantza Port operational areas and maneuvering

reference points

As we can see in figure 2, the fairway will have

21.0 meters depth and a turning basin with 600

meters radius will be established abeam the 19

meters depth berths.

These were the circumstances that determined the

Constantza Maritime University to propose to the

Romanian government the OPTIMPORT research

project. The proposal was accepted by the Ministry

of Transport and the project is financed from the

research funds of the Ministry of Education. The

main goal of OPTIMPORT is to asses the feasibility

of the planned fairways and quays configuration, in

terms of safety for very large ships maneuvering

actions. It was for the first time in Romania, when

large scale, real time simulation was used for

evaluation of the port engineering design.

In order to accomplish the working packages of

OPTIMPORT project, Constantza Maritime

University is using a Transas NT Pro-4000, class A,

full mission ship handling simulator (FMSHS), and

the maritime 3D and hydrological database special

created for the Constantza Port area.

3 DESIGN OF SHIP HANDLING SCENARIOS

Use of FMSHS for design, evaluation and

assessment of engineering port infrastructure

projects is not a new issue. Starting from the 80ties,

such researches were undertaken in different

countries, and for different types of ports. These past

experience, in terms of simulation procedures

applied and results obtained could be used only as

guidelines for new experiments, because there are

not two ports where the basic ship handling

conditions are the same (Webster, 1992). Any how,

there are a few basic steps that must be

accomplished before beginning the design of the

new scenarios.

In order to draw up the deep draught ship

handling scenarios for the optimization of the

Constantza port access fairway, we have started from

the existing rules and procedures related to.

In synthesis, the rules that imposed specific

restriction for ship maneuvering are:

Pilotage is compulsory for al maritime ships, pilot

embarkation point located 0.5 NM south of north

breakwater head (see map in figure 1);

− port maneuvers of ships exceeding 16 m draught

are forbidden by night in berths 80-82, when a

tanker ship is moored alongside in berth no.79

(see map in figure 1);

− port maneuvers of tankers exceeding 11 m

draught are forbidden by night in berths 69-78

(see map in figure 1);

− only one tanker could use the entrance fairway at

one time;

− no ship must enter/leave Constantza North area, if

the “Red-Green lighthouses” area is not clear

− ships entering the port must keep clear of the way

of ships leaving the port;

− Constantza Port Control (VTS) could suspend

maneuvers if wind exceeds 7 BFS or visibility is

lower than 0.5 NM;

Fig. 2. Developments for Constantza Port for 2007-2013

− Towing is compulsory for all ships exceeding

1000 NRT, excepting ships with bow thrusters

and/or two propellers. Towing is compulsory in

all the port area, excepting the entrance fairway

(see map in figure 1).

Number and power of tugs is related with ships

length, as follows:

− length lower then 130 meters – 1 tug of at least

600 HP

− length between 131 and 150 meters – 2 tugs of at

least 600 HP

− length between 151 and 200 meters – 2 tugs of at

least 2000 HP

− length between 201 and 250 meters – 3 tugs (two

of 2400 HP and one of 4800 HP)

− length greater then 250 meters – 4 tugs (two of

2400 HP and two of 4800 HP)

Power and number of tugs are very important

elements that must be taken into consideration

(TEWG, 2001) when we simulate maneuvers for full

loaded bulk carriers (150000 DWT and above) and

VLCCs (200000 DWT and above). Tugs must also

be considered for simulated maneuvers of big

containers ships and LPG ships with LOA over 250

meters.

In accordance with the port expansion projects,

we will have to see in what conditions the turning

basin with 600 meters radius is sufficient (USACE,

1987) for handling large ships in the deep draught

berths area or Piers II and III.

Second major item for preliminary analysis refers

to specific meteorological conditions of the

Constantza maritime area. Here we have to deal with

statistical multi-annual values, as an average per

month for winds characteristics, but also with the

direction, speed and duration of wind during severe

storms.

The amount of work for hydro-meteorological

conditions is lower than for other ports, because in

Constantza Port there are no tides and water currents

to be taken into consideration.

On the other hand, the Port of Constantza has a

very low natural protection against the predominant

northern winds, especially in the Constantza South

area.

4 FAIRWAY ASSESSMENT AND

OPTIMIZATION

Because the construction of the central quays on the

artificial island (figure 2 – expansion zone no.4) will

narrow very much the available safety maneuvering

space on the west of the fairway, the team of

instructors from the Navigation Simulation Complex

of Constantza Maritime University divided the ship

handling scenarios in two main categories: with or

without the artificial island.

The first rows of simulations were done

considering that the artificial island (project area

no.4) will be not build. In these circumstances, we

had take into account a fairway deepen at 21 meters

and width extended from the actual 300 meters to

500 meters, in order to better respect the Rule of

Thumb stating that the width of one-way channels

should be between 4–5 times the maximum beam of

ships expected to use (USACE, 2002). Also, for

these simulations we considered the depths of water

increased along the berths 79-82 to 19 meters, 16.5

meters along berths no.83 and 14.5 meters at berth

no.84 (Delefortrie et al., 2004). For the same starting

hypothesis, we assessed the proposed location no.2

for the LPG terminal at Pier III S.

We consider that construction of the quays on the

artificial island area will decrease safety of

navigation on the northern part of the entrance

fairway and will amplify the bottle neck effect in the

“Red-Green lighthouses” area (Barsan, 2006b). Even

if this part of the extension project is considered by

the Constantza port administration as stage 1, we

think that we demonstrate that it will be better to

reconsider construction of Pier III S-area no.5, also

in stage 1.

The second row of scenarios that will be

undertaken in the second part of year 2007 will

consider the existence of the artificial island quays,

but only in the stage 1 construction area, where the

first option location for the LPG terminal has been

planned. For these scenarios, the considered depth of

the fairway will be also be 21 meters, same new

depths at berths 79-84, but width of the fairway will

be maintained at 300 meters.

In both cases, the turning basin location and

dimension will be tested, mainly for handling of

post-Panamax container ships without tugs, or with

only one tug, in various wind conditions.

The scope of the OPTIMPORT project is to asses

the safety of navigation and port maneuvering

actions in the Constantza South area, along the

routes labeled 1, 2 and 3 in figure 3. The following

types of own ships were used during simulation:

− Large bulk carrier: LOA = 290 m, Breadth = 46

m, Draught = 17.1 m, 179658 DWT;

− VLCC full loaded: LOA = 261 m, Breadth = 48.3

m, Draught = 16.7 m, 210000 DWT;

− LPG: LOA = 183 m, Breadth = 22.6 m, Draught =

10.4 m;

− Post-Panamax Container ship – type 3: LOA =

277 m, Breadth = 40 m, Draught = 13 m, 58070

DWT;

− Post-Panamax Container ship – type 4: LOA

= 347 m, Breadth = 42.2 m, Draught = 14 m,

104696 DWT.

Post-Panamax container ships, having draughts

greater than 12 meters, could only be operated at

Pier II S container terminal (simulation route no.3).

In figure 4 is shown such a maneuver of a 277

meters long container ship, which has only

bowthrusters. These kind of testing maneuvers were

undertaken by CMU instructors’ and the resulting

trajectories were compared with real maneuvering

trajectories of smaller container ships in Constantza

South area, recorded by AIS receiver and electronic

chart plotter.

Bulk carriers and VLCCs of such dimensions

could be moored only in berth 79-82 (simulation

route 1+2). We tested standard maneuvers with two

pulling tugs and one tug in assistance. Such a

maneuver, using three tugs is shown in figure 5,

where an VLCC is departing berth 80 from the

Constantza North area. For wind increasing over 4

BFT, we use three tugs (two pulling tugs and one

pushing tug) for handling loaded bulk carriers along

route 2 (figure 6). Very large bulk carriers could be

unloaded only in berth # 81 and 82, after the

dredging operations that will deepen water on this

sector to 16.5 -19 meters.

One tug will be used for turning container ships at

the end of route 3, in case post-Panamax container

ships could not maneuver along route 3 without

assistance. Starting with these basic conditions, we

will amplify the risks (Hensen, 1999) increasing the

force of wind from the most inconvenient, but most

probable direction.

Fig. 3. Simulation routes and areas in OPTIMPORT project

Along route 2, we have to decide the optimum

width of the new dragged fairway, in order to allow

maneuvers of ships in berth 83 and/or 84 if large

ships are moored alongside in berths 79-82

(Demirbilek , Sargent , 1999).

On the first stage, the team of instructors of the

Navigation Simulation Complex of the Constantza

Maritime University had run the planned simulations

and performed the required maneuvers.

In stage 2 (starting from May 2007), the

instructors will ask for technical assistance and

consulting from the Constantza Port pilots. The

bridge team that will undertake ship handling

maneuvers during simulations will also include a

certified pilot. The prime role of the real pilot is to

give orders and coordinate tugs actions during

maneuvers that involve two or three tugs. The tugs

responses will be executed by the instructors,

directly from the bridge, using the conning display

maneuvering window, or from the instructors’

exercise monitoring console.

On the last stage (stage 3 – starting from

September 2007), we will perform a more complex

simulation, in order to increase the realism of the

simulation (Briggs et al., 2001). We will

simultaneously use 3-4 own ships (OS), and 3-4

bridge teams. One OS will be the cargo ship (bulk,

VLCC, container, etc.) and the rest of 2-3 OS will be

the tugs that will handle the cargo ship. We will

have a certified pilot on the bridge of the OS cargo

ship, and a certified tug captain (from the Constantza

Port Pilotage companies) on each of the tugs bridge

teams. In accordance with our knowledge and from

the survey of the existing technical literature it will

be for the first time when simulation for

optimization of waterways will consider also human

reaction on the maneuvering tugboats. A lot of

human resources will be implicated in these tests and

coordination of teams could be difficult to manage if

the people involved will not consider this work very

seriously and as real as possible.

Fig. 4. Berthing maneuver on Pier IIS for Post-Panamax

container ship (without tugs)

Fig. 5. VLCC departure maneuver from berth # 80, using three

tugs

Finally, we think also about an extension of the

OPTIMPORT project after year 2007, with new

scenarios for testing the most favorable location of

the LPG terminal. Because the Constantza Port

Administration had not take a decision regarding the

final location of this terminal (see figure 2), a set of

simulations that will reveal the maneuvering

characteristics of the two locations, will help the

building place decision process.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Using the three phase simulation approach

(instructors alone, instructors plus pilots, instructors

plus pilots plus tug captains), we think that we will

be able to make a very realistic assessment of the

maneuvering capabilities and techniques that could

be used in the new projected circumstances for the

Constantza Port.

Records of simulations are compared, not only

regarding the tracks of the ships, but also the overall

maneuvering time, for defining and selecting the

best maneuvering procedures (Barsan, 2006a). The

same maneuver is performed in different weather

conditions, changes being made mainly to wind

force and directions. For the more difficult

maneuvers, the same scenario will be run through

the three stages, at least with unfavorable wind

direction force 3, force 5 and force 7. This means

that we will have at least 9 simulations for the same

basic situation.

Fig. 6. Berthing maneuver of 200000 dwt bulk carrier, using

three tugs

This research methodology will increase the

general cost of the OPTIMPORT project, but we

expect to have voluntary collaboration from the

Constantza Port pilots and tugs captains. At the end

of the project, in exchange for the consulting done

by the pilots, we will organize a series of short

simulation training courses, free of charge, courses

that will meet the requirements of paragraph 5.5 of

the IMO Resolution A.960(23)/2003 regarding

Recommendations on training and certification for

maritime pilots other than deep-sea pilots. These

courses will include simulation in the featured depth

conditions and with the very large ships that will

berth at the new cargo terminals.

In the project risk management procedures we

will also estimated costs of the dredging works

required for deepening and enlarging the entrance

fairway at the dimensions specified above. If these

costs are too high, and the advantages offered for

increasing the safety of navigation and ship handling

are not relevant, we will undertake a new series of

simulations working with the actual 300 meters

width of the fairway, and the new 21 meters depth.

Maintaining the actual with of the fairway will

amplify the existing traffic problems and also the

already identified risks, related to the use of the

actual fairway as a two way passage available for

large ships. In accordance with actual piloting

procedures, when a large oil tanker is entering or

leaving the port, all other traffic in the fairway area

is closed. Same restriction applies for loaded bulk

carriers entering the port. For crude oil and bulk

cargo, Constantza port is a discharging port, so we

have to handle deep draught loaded vessels only for

arrival. Because oil and bulk terminals are located in

the southern part of the port North Area, these

vessels had to transit the entire entrance fairway,

blocking the passage for the two way traffic flow.

The actual budget of OPTIMPORT does not

allow design of a new 3D database model for the

Constantza Port, with the featured new quays

locations in areas 4 and 5 (figure 2). The simulations

that will be run in order to test the implications of

the new berths will aim only at the passage and

maneuvering of ships in and near the fairway and

near the new quays, without effective berthing

maneuvers.

We intend to keep the simulator instructors’

community informed about our findings and to share

the experience that we will gain in the next year,

regarding the use of simulation for testing deep

water fairway design and optimization of port

maneuvering procedures.

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