The paper presents and reviews some recent results obtained at the National Maritime Institute concerning the effect of sloping surface-piercing and flooded banks on ship models. After a short description of the experimental methods employed, the results are presented and discussed.

It is shown that the sway force and yaw moment induced on a model by a sloping surface-piercing or flooded bank do not always vary with speed in a quadratic manner. It is assumed that such behaviour is due to wave action between the model and the bank which also gives rise to a ‘bank rejection’ under certain conditions rather than the more usual ‘bank suction’.

Changes in resistance and squat due to the presence of a bank to one side of the model are also demonstrated, and the effects of advance coefficient, bank slope and yaw angle on bank effects are discussed.

The paper concludes with a short general discussion which considers the relationship between the above results and some aspects of ship behaviour in confined waters.