Investigation on the effects of a sailing ship motion by Tsunami

Many earthquakes occur in Japan every year. In particular, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011, in the coastal sea area of northeastern Japan. As the epicenter was located close to the seashore in the Pacific coastal area, a big tsunami was generated. As a result, extensive damage was caused. Many ships were significantly damaged by the big tsunami. Many ships anchoring in and out of port, mooring to quay, or sailing in the near coastal sea area were stranded on land, capsized, or sunk. However, the motion of these ships when encountering the tsunami has not been sufficiently understood due to a lack of data. This paper deals with an investigation of the motion of ships encountering the tsunami. Automatic Identification System (AIS) data obtained from many sailing ships were used and analyzed to estimate the motion of ships. It has been confirmed that this method is very original and effective.