This paper is mainly concerned with the assessment of safe navigation between ships moving each other in restricted waterways. The numerical simulation of manoeuvring motion was conducted parametrically to propose an appropriate safe speed and distance, which is required to avoid sea accident under the different conditions, such as ship-velocity ratios, ship-length ratios, separation and stagger between ships. As for the calculation parameters, the ratios of velocity difference between two ships were considered as 0.6, 1.2, 1.5 and the ones of ship-length difference were regarded were regarded as 0.5, 1.0, 1.18. From the inspection of this investigation, it indicates the following result. Firstly, the separation between ships is more needed for the small vessel, compared to the large vessel. Secondly, the lateral distance between ships is necessarily required for the velocity ration of 1.2, compared to the cases of 0.6 and 1.5. The manoeuvring characteristics based on this investigation will be very useful for keeping the safety of navigation from the practical point of ships design and traffic control in confined water.

• Chun-Ki Lee