CFD analysis is expanding understanding of suction aerofoils as a wind-assisted propulsion technology. By evaluating lift, drag, boundary-layer suction, endplates, and ship-interaction effects, researchers quantified performance across operating conditions. The findings demonstrate strong potential for emissions reduction, provide valuable design data, and support broader adoption of wind-powered shipping worldwide today.

Accelerating adoption of Wind Assisted Ship Propulsion requires more than technology alone. This analysis identifies open innovation, financing, collaboration, and proactive environmental strategies as critical enablers for commercialization and scale-up. The findings provide actionable guidance for shipowners, policymakers, and technology providers seeking faster reduction of maritime emissions and broader deployment.

Passenger evacuation modelling is evolving beyond simplified assumptions, with large-scale sea-trial evidence revealing that response behaviour varies significantly by vessel type, accommodation layout, passenger demographics, and operating conditions. Emerging insights into human behaviour and emergency response are prompting a reassessment of how passenger ship safety is analysed and regulated.

Port congestion is prompting a rethink of voyage planning, with “Virtual Arrival” emerging as a practical way to align sailing schedules with actual port availability. By reducing speed rather than waiting at anchor, operators can cut fuel consumption, lower emissions, ease port congestion, and improve the overall efficiency and sustainability of maritime transport networks.

As vessels increasingly operate in congested and restricted waterways, managing bank effects has become a critical challenge for safe navigation. Advanced CFD analysis of ship-rudder interactions reveals how steering inputs, water depth, and bank proximity combine to influence hydrodynamic forces, providing deeper insight into vessel controllability and the complex mechanisms that contribute to collision risk near channel boundaries.

As pressure grows to balance operational efficiency with environmental performance, understanding vessel wash is becoming increasingly important. Applying advanced wavelet analysis reveals subtle changes in wake behaviour across different operating regimes, vessel characteristics, and water depths, demonstrating a powerful new approach to assessing wash impacts and supporting more informed vessel operation and waterway management.

As emissions regulations continue to tighten, the maritime industry is placing greater emphasis on understanding and reducing engine-related air pollution. Advanced numerical modelling is providing a faster and more cost-effective way to assess emissions-control strategies, highlighting the trade-offs involved in reducing NOx while balancing impacts on overall combustion performance and engine efficiency.

Designing non-transport vessels for long service lives is complicated by evolving market conditions, operational demands, and stakeholder expectations. By applying Epoch-Era Analysis, this work demonstrates how future uncertainty can be incorporated into early-stage design decisions, helping designers evaluate changeability, adaptability, and long-term value rather than optimising solely for immediate requirements.

As CFD emerges as a powerful tool for analysing ship manoeuvring in restricted waters, it is providing new insights into the complex hydrodynamic interactions between vessels, rudders, and channel boundaries. Industry discussion supports the potential of numerical methods to improve understanding of bank effects, while highlighting the importance of incorporating factors such as propeller action, shallow-water conditions, free-surface effects, and experimental validation to ensure reliable application in navigational safety and ship-handling practice.

As coastal communities face increasing exposure to storm impacts and extreme sea states, accurately predicting wave set-up is becoming essential for reliable hazard assessment and coastal infrastructure design. By developing a new framework for estimating wave set-up under random wave conditions, this research highlights the significant influence of wave-spectrum characteristics on coastal water levels and demonstrates the practical application of the method using real-world measurements from diverse coastal environments.

Understanding when water should be considered “shallow” is becoming increasingly important as vessel efficiency, safety, and environmental performance come under greater scrutiny. By examining a broad range of hydrodynamic indicators, this research challenges the traditional reliance on depth alone and proposes a more comprehensive framework for characterising shallow-water effects, supporting improved vessel operations, route planning, and wash management.

As offshore wind development accelerates across European waters, the installation of increasingly large foundation structures is presenting new geotechnical and construction challenges. Alternative installation technologies are therefore gaining attention, with trench cutter methods offering a potential solution for sites where conventional pile driving is constrained by hard ground conditions, helping to improve the reliability and efficiency of offshore wind farm construction.