Fishing is at the front of the maritime sector in accidents and ship losses, which are usually caused by stability loss and its associated problems. The crews of the vessels do not usually know how to deal with these situations and are unable to properly evaluate the risks their ships are undertaking. This is the problem we have tried to address, that is, how to create a system that can act as an assistant to crews of fishing vessels and provide information on their level of stability any given moment, in a very easy, clear and understandable way, independently from the training level of the user. Such a system is presented in this work: it is able to deal with the main causes of ship instability for the majority of ship loading conditions, presenting the stability information in a very understandable manner. Finally, the ease of operation of the system is demonstrated through an analysis of its usability, the results of which are also presented here. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
