ABSTRACT
Ships are designed to withstand hull girder loads, most importantly the vertical bending moment, consisting of still water bending, wave bending and whipping. Wave bending and whipping are handled by good seamanship avoiding severe storms, adjusting course and speed. An onboard loading computer is required to predict water bending. After the calibration, the ship has reported measurements from many ports. The moment considered for the laser measurement is the midship moment. For a container ship, moments aft of midship may be larger than at midship, and secondly the utilization may be higher aft than at midship. There are relatively few observations made so far to define the difference between the loading computer and the measurements in average, but also for the variation between those two means to estimate the water bending. The comparison between the loading computer and the laser measurement is good.
