Shipboard berthing: Athwartship and longitudinal

Longitudinal berthing has been used tradition ally aboard most Navy ships. As a mixture of athwartship and longitudinal berthing could result in improved habitability and space utilization, information was needed to indicate whether there were any deleterious effects of athwartship berthing which would prohibit its use. Athwartship berthing is currently extensively used aboard passenger, cargo, and fishing vessels. In every category examined, from large to small, both stabilized and unstabilized, there were ships possessing significant percentages of athwartship berthing orientations. Interviews with knowledgeable personnel resulted in a wide variety of strongly felt opinions about personal preferences for berth orientation, but no respondent was able to cite deleterious effects of this orientation. A mixture of berth orientations may and should be incorporated in future ship designs.