Splitting methods for controlled vessel marine operations

A rigid body model for the dynamics of a marine vessel, used in simulations of offshore pipe-lay operations, gives rise to a set of ordinary differential equations. This system of equations consists of terms modelling Coriolis effects, damping, restoring forces and moments, environmental forces, and controls. We propose splitting methods tailored to the numerical solution of this problem. The suggested splitting is into the conservative part, and the remaining part containing damping and control. The conservative part is completely integrable, even though it is nonlinear. The damping and control part is linear, and therefore easily integrable. We investigate stability and energy behaviour of the methods in numerical experiments.