For the real-time simulation of ship manoeuvring, it is required to estimate the hydrodynamic forces with high accuracy. Current methods to determine the hydrodynamic coefficients prove to be time consuming and labour intensive. In this thesis, a method based on Singular Value Decomposition is proposed to determine the hydrodynamic coefficients from a manoeuvre executed by a vessel. The method applies Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) on the equations of motion in the horizontal plane using estimated propeller and rudder forces. With use of numerical differentiation the velocities and accelerations of the
vessel are calculated. The set of coefficients determined by the method is based on low aspect ratio lift theory. By comparing the trial manoeuvres simulated with results from the MMG method, it shows that the manoeuvres agree well with the MMG results. However since the method is only tested on simulated trial manoeuvres there are still some problems to be solved such as influence of measuring errors, determining the set of coefficients to be predicted and the search for the best manoeuvre(s) to predict the coefficients.