where F and v depict ship fuel consumption rate
and ship speed respectively, and a0, a1,
a2, and a3 depict regression parameters,
which are obtained by least squares regression. In a more recent
study17, the Holtrop-Mensen procedure has been
calibrated using “statistical samples from model tests, sea trials, or
computational fluid dynamics results”17. An
alternative to the data–based Holtrop-Menen
method15,16 is presented by Bialystocki and
Konovessis18, which is based on an algorithm which
requires four input parameters of a given ship and voyage, namely,
“ship´s draft in the suggested voyage, weather force, weather
direction, and date of the fore coming voyage”18. For
the ship-voyage pair tested, the variation of ship fuel consumption rate
(per unit time) is found to be quadratic with ship speed,
namely,