# Realised savings depend on execution, not just optimisation

Voyage optimisation only delivers when Masters trust the guidance - and adherence is the clearest proof that projected savings are becoming real-world results.

Thomas Hechmann

## **What credible guidance looks like**

Masters tend to follow recommendations when a few things are true: The weather forecast matches what they can see and feel. The speed guidance reflects how the vessel actually performs, not a generic curve. The recommendation accounts for the current commercial and safety picture — port windows, charter terms, weather routing clauses, exclusion zones. It updates as the voyage evolves rather than being fixed at departure. And shoreside has the same operational picture, so the conversation isn't two people working from different forecasts.

If any of that breaks down, adherence drops - and rightly so. A Master who follows obviously wrong advice is taking on risk that properly belongs upstream.

## What we see when the system works

When credibility is in place, adherence rises and the gap between projected and realised savings narrows.

In 2025, a large dry bulk operator using [Wayfinder](/content/products/wayfinder/index.html) ran 1,400 voyages with around 80% RPM adherence and 84% route suggestion adherence. The result: $9.7m in delivered gains and 35,205 tonnes of CO₂ avoided, measured voyage by voyage against the most recent valid operating plan rather than the departure plan.

That methodology matters. Benchmarking against the initial route flatters every system, because no voyage plan stays the same from load to discharge.

The honest question is: What value did the recommendation add over the most recent plan that was actually being executed, and how much of that did the vessel realise?

In May 2026, three of our clients accepted 100% of our route suggestions across the month. Across our customer base, exceeding 80% acceptance on both routes and RPM is normal. These aren't artefacts of easy weather or cherry-picked voyages; they're sustained rates across full operating fleets.

## The feedback loop is the point

The reason this matters operationally isn't the headline number. It's that you can finally close the loop. What was recommended? What was accepted? What was followed? What was saved? Where was value lost, and why?

When that loop runs every voyage, deviations stop being noise and start being a source of insight. Avoidable opex separates cleanly from necessary judgement. Fleet ops moves from defending decisions after the fact to improving them in real time.

If you want to know whether your current optimisation programme is doing this, there's a simple test. Ask for last quarter's realised savings, voyage by voyage, against the most recent valid operating plan — not the departure plan — with adherence rates broken out by recommendation type. If that's hard to produce, the loop isn't really running. And without the loop, projected savings will keep being projected.

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