Departing Tubarão on the Brazilian east coast, the vessel tracked north-east along the Brazilian bulge before turning north-west after the equator, transiting the Caribbean Sea and approaching the Gulf of Mexico via the Yucatan Channel. The route-averaged significant wave height was 1.69 m, with 80.2% of waypoints at Douglas Sea State 4 or higher (≥1.25 m) and 4.9% at Sea State 5 or higher (≥2.5 m). The peak encounter, 2.69 m, occurred on the south-western tropical Atlantic on the approach to the Caribbean, roughly 700 nm east of Trinidad. The historical AIS track covered comparable seas (80.4% Sea State 4+ and 5.3% Sea State 5+), so the bulk of the 13.67% fuel saving came from speed and routing optimisation rather than sea-state avoidance, with the optimised track also 92 nm shorter than the historical baseline.
How the voyage performed across wave height and Douglas Sea State exposure — recorded waypoint-by-waypoint.
Waypoint-by-waypoint against the historical AIS baseline.
The historical AIS track was pulled from public records and matched against the master’s own reports. The VF Engine then re-routed the same vessel under the weather as it actually occurred — not a forecast. Both tracks were scored by the same FOC prediction model and compared waypoint by waypoint. The 13.67% reduction is the delta sailed at the same speed band, under the same wind and wave conditions.
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