Fatigue lifetime has proven to be a leading design parameter for naval vessels. In the field of fatigue analysis and design of welded joints, two overall methods are distinguished: the temporal and spectral approach. Using empirical models, the spectral approach is typically preferred due to its efficiency, even though damage estimates are conservative. With the temporal approach, nonlinear effects can be captured, providing higher accuracy at the cost of additional computation time. Within this framework, an improvement of the spectral approach was pursued, focusing on incorporating the mean stress effect. Past efforts to include mean stress corrections were continued by focusing on applying the Walker correction. Nonlinear effects on the mean stress response were investigated and were found to be quite small for the case of a pontoon vessel. This enabled the use of the still water bending moment as a single input to the spectral mean stress model. By using Walker in the spectral mean stress correction, an overall reduction of conservatism of 21% was achieved. Future research should focus on testing new wave cases, applying additional fatigue models and investigating the effects for hull shapes of naval vessels.