A method of governing a vessel, the vessel comprising:
- a bow thruster, provided at a bow area of the vessel;
- one single steerable engine and/or an engine with axis oriented in fixed way and with a rudder;
- a setting member for setting conditions of displacement of the vessel, said setting member comprising an input element of setting signals movable according to pre-established paths, said setting signals corresponding to movements of only translation, of only rotation, and/or of combinations of a rotation and of a translation of the vessel and also to variations of a speed of displacement of the vessel;
- a control unit, which receives said setting signals of the movement and which is configured to generate correlated control signals of said bow thruster and/or said engine in such a way that thrust impulses exerted on the vessel by said bow thruster and/or by said engine generate a resulting impulse that moves the vessel correspondingly to conditions of movement set with said setting member,
- said method comprising:
- for executing a maneuver of transversal translation that provides a lateral drift, generating control signals that determine an activation of the bow thruster with a pre-established number of revolutions and a pre-established direction of rotation and simultaneously an activation of said engine with a pre-established number of revolutions and a pre-established setting of forward gear or reverse gear, wherein said engine and/or said rudder are steered alternately and in succession in one direction and in an opposite direction with respect to a longitudinal axis of the vessel with a pre-established steering angle and/or the gear direction, so as to cause a gear direction set on the engine is alternately inverted between forward gear and reverse gear, and/or wherein said number of revolutions of the engine of the bow thruster and/or of the engine of the vessel are varied in synchronized way correspondingly to a variation of the steering angle and/or of a gear direction, said succession being defined by a duration of each steering position of the engine of the vessel and/or of the rudder respectively in a first direction and in a second direction and/or of said setting of the gear of the engine in forward gear or in reverse gear and/or of the number of revolutions of the bow thruster and vessel engines, by a frequency of switching between the two steering directions and/or the two gear directions, said succession being in the an order of magnitude of a response time of a movement of the vessel between the an instant of setting of the steering direction and/or the gear and a corresponding actual displacement of the vessel caused by a thrust of the vessel engine in a corresponding steering direction and/or in a corresponding gear condition and being further determined by an inertia of motion of the vessel;
- and
- defining correlation functions between said setting signals of the control signals for the activation separate and/or combined of said bow thruster and of said vessel engine, steerable or having the axis oriented in the fixed way, or of a combination of non-steerable engine and steerable rudder, said correlation functions comprising:
- activating the setting member correspondingly to one specific target displacement of the vessel, said specific target displacement being said displacement of transversal translation and/or of the speed of displacement;
- having a pilot verify an actual direction and/or speed of displacement of the vessel caused by said activating of the setting member;
- manually varying the correlation functions of the control signals generated by the control unit as function of the setting signals generated by activating the setting member for executing a specific displacement until an actual displacement direction and an actual displacement speed of the vessel comes to correspond, within pre-established tolerances, with a displacement direction or displacement speed defined by activating of the setting member;
- and
- storing said correlation functions in a memory of the control unit.