The experiment of the marine radar wave observation system has been made on the high speed vessel, her speed is about 50 knots, on the waters near around Izu-Oshima Island and Goto Islands for 8 days in total in 1994. The wavelength and the propagating direction of prevailing waves were obtained from the radar sea echo data by the 2-dimensional spectral analysis, and its observational and analytical ability was examined based on those data.
The system could analyze the wavelength and the propagating direction of swell as prevailing waves in most cases when swell were predominant rather than wind waves. In some cases when winds blew strong enough and relatively long, and when wind waves and swell became big enough and were mixed, the system could analyze and distinguish Wind waves and swell both.
1. INTRODUCTION
For the safety navigation, operation and management of ships and marine structures, it is very important and necessary to have accurate Wave information at the surrounding waters. Especially for the high speed vessel like the Techno Super Liner, it is more important and necessary to have more accurate wave information. But it is more difficult for the navigators on board of this high speed ship to get wave information visually as usually observed because of high speed, about 50 knots.
Some wave measuring devices available to acquire the wave height and the wave period have been developed and operated. However, it is not easy to acquire accurate information about the wavelength and the propagating direction of ocean waves because most of wave observations are usually carried out visually by ships' officers on board without any wave measuring instruments.
It is well known that the radar sea echo can provide manifold information about the sea surface. Therefore, some fundamental and experimental researches on wave measuring systems have been made in order to acquire 2-dimensional information about the wavelength and the propagating direction of prevailing waves from radar sea echo1)〜5）. And further researches on the
