Most fishing vessels are less than 100 m in length (LBP), which is not mandatory for the IMO standards for ship maneuverability. Therefore, research on estimating the maneuverability of fishing vessel hull shapes are somewhat lacking compared to that of merchant ship hull shapes, and at the design stage, the numerical simulation method developed for merchant ships are applied without modification to estimate the maneuverability. Since this can cause estimation errors, the authors have derived a modified empirical formula that can improve the accuracy of estimating the maneuverability of fishing vessels in a previous study. In this study, using the modified empirical formula, the IMO maneuverability evaluation items, the turning motion test and Z-test simulations were performed on the fisheries training vessel BAEK-KYUNG and compared with the sea trial test result to verify the validity of the modified empirical formula. In conclusion, the modified empirical formula was able to estimate quantitatively and qualitatively similar to the result of the sea trial test. Such a study on estimating the maneuverability of fishing vessels will be a good indicator for fishing vessel operators and will help them analyze marine accidents.

At ship design stage, the maneuverability is generally estimated based on the empirical formula or the computational fluid dynamic (CFD), which is one of the numerical simulation methods. Using the hydrodynamic derivatives derived through these methods can quantitatively estimate the maneuverability of target vessels and evaluate indirect maneuverability. Nevertheless, research on estimating maneuverability is insufficient for ships not subject to IMO maneuverability standard, especially fishing vessels, and even at the design stage, the empirical formula developed for merchant ships is applied without modification. An estimation error may occur due to the empirical formula derived from the regression analysis results of a model test if the empirical formula developed for merchant ships with different hull shapes is applied to fishing vessels without any modification. In this study, the modified empirical formula that can more accurately estimate the fishing vessel's maneuverability was derived by including the hull shape parameter of target fishing trawlers in the regression analysis process that derives Kijima et al. (1990) formula. As a result, the modified empirical formula showed an average estimation error of 6%, and the result improved the average error of 49% of Kijima et al. (1990) formula developed for merchant ships.