Prior carrying the trimming calculations, it is important that you take account

of the following 3 things-

1. Be fully aware of the limiting draft of the ship. The limiting draft of
the ship could be dependent upon restrictions at load port,
discharge port, load line zones, intermediate port such as bunkering
port or canal transit etc. The point is that the ship’s officer must be
fully conversant with the limiting draft of the ship. 
2. Always take into account few centimeters of sag allowance esp for
ship’s of larger size and/or loading high density cargoes.  Note that
a prudent Chief Mate will always take into account sag allowance in
order to prevent overloading of ship. Overloading can lead to
numerous problems for a ship. 
3. Always take penultimate holds (and not the extreme holds) for
trimming esp for Panamax and above size. For ships having 5 holds,
end holds shall be used. Although, this rule is not fixed and any hold
can be used for carrying out trimming operations – depending upon
the final trim requirement and/or space available in the holds.   
Having said above, sufficient amount of trimming quantity shall be kept in
hand for final trimming.  This quantity shall be increased especially while
loading in ports where the shore scale is not frequent calibrated and the
wrong calibration might result in reduction in planned trimming quantity (as
due to error the shore may load excess cargo). 

Let us assume the case of Panamax Bulk carrier having 7 cargo holds. The
intermediate Draft Survey is done and vessel has arrived at the trimming
stage.

The drafts obtained are – 

Ford: 13.00 mtrs

Aft: 13.40 mtrs

Mid: 13.22 mtrs 

The ship has trim of 0.40 mtrs and SAG of 2 cms. 

The limiting draft of the ship is 13.482 mtrs and ship needs to finish loading
on an Even Keel.

Step 1: Calculate the Cargo which can be loaded by

calculating the Sinkage
Sinkage means how much more the ship can be submerged in the water by
loading cargo such that it comes to the limiting draft. 

Sinkage has a simple formula – 

Sinkage Available = Limiting draft – Current Midship draft – Sag allowance 

Note that the Current Midship draft is the VISUAL draft being noted and not
the Mean draft of the ship. In this case, it is 13.22 mtrs. 

Hence Sinkage Available = 13.482 – 13.220 = 0.262 mtrs or 26.2 cms. 

I have not taken any SAG allowance, but if in your experience particularly when
loading High Density Cargoes always take few cms of Sag allowance. It will
aid you to not to overload the ship. 

After calculating the sinkage, let us calculate how much cargo which will
result in that sinkage. 

Cargo to load = Sinkage Available (in cms) x TPC 

= 26.2 x 68.30 = 1789.46 tonnes ~ 1790 tonnes of cargo. 

The TPC value used is the one specified for your hydrostatic draft. 

Now it’s time to know what are Trimming Tables 

Trimming Tables 
Trimming tables gives effect on ship’s fore and aft draft when 100 MT of
cargo is loaded into a certain compartment. Trimming tables can be a part of
Trim and Stability Booklet or can be provided separately. Ship officers shall
well familiarize themselves with usage of trimming tables as different
shipyards can present the data in such tables in different formats. 
Once such format is specified below belonging to a bulk carrier. Note that
Cargo Hold 1~5 are not mentioned explicitly but instead they are named
R.1.01 ~ R.1.05. 

However we shall keep things simple and use proper names for the
compartment. In this problem I intend to use Cargo Hold 2 and 6 for trimming
so this is how the data for the same will look like – 

Above data shows the effect on forward drafts when 100 mt of cargo is
loaded into a cargo hold no 2 and 6. The words TF and TA states the
correction for Forward and Aft draft respectively. While the numbers following
11,12,13,14 is the mean draft of the ship which is used to enter the tables. 

As per the table if 100 tonnes of Cargo is loaded in Cargo Hold No 2 for ship
at mean draft of 11.00 mtrs the Forward draft will increase by 0.056 mtrs and
Aft draft will decrease by -0.022 mtrs. Similarly, for mean draft of 12 mtrs if
100 tonnes of cargo is loaded in Hold No 6 the Forward draft will decrease by
0.011 mtrs and Aft draft will increase by 0.041. The negative sign means that
the correction shall be subtracted (draft is reduced) and positive sign means
correction shall be added (draft is increased).
Moving on, the ship has a mean draft of 13.20 mtrs ((13.00 + 13.40)/2 =
13.20) and therefore we need to interpolate between the values of 13 and 14
mtrs as shown – 

On interpolation we get the following values – 

So let us move on to our next step.

Step 2: Calculate total trim change caused by the holds in

which cargo is being loaded
This is done by making a simple table as follows –

In this table we are finding out the change of trim – obtained by taking a
difference of the ford and aft sinkage values. The important thing to note here
is we have to KEEP the signs active. 
Note in the case of Cargo Hold No 2 – the corrections are actually added
when the difference is taken and similar case is with the values of Cargo hold
No 6. The total change of trim is obtained by ADDING values for both holds as
shown in red box. 

Step No 3: Calculating cargo to load in 1st Hold (Hold No 2)

Now we have to calculate the quantity we shall load in Cargo Hold no 2. The
ship presently has a trim of 0.40 mtrs by stern. Our first aim is to bring the
ship to Even Keel. This can be achieved only by loading certain quantity of
cargo in Hold 2 such that it causes a trim change of 0.40 mtrs by head and
brings the ship to even keel. This can be calculated by using the following
formula – 

So as you can see we need to load 526 tonnes of cargo in Hold No 2 in order
to bring the ship to even keel. 

Step 4: Calculate the cargo to be loaded in Second Hold

(Hold No 6)
From above we know that 526 tonnes is to be loaded in Hold 2. So the balance
cargo to load is

1790 – 526 = 1264 tonnes

Now this cargo needs to be distributed in Hold 2 and Hold 6 such that the ship
is loaded to her limiting draft and NO TRIM CHANGE IS CAUSED (as we need
the ship to finish loading on an even keel). Let us first calculate the cargo
which can be loaded into HOLD NO 2. 

This can be calculated by the following formula – 

Alternatively you can calculate the Cargo to load in Hold No 6 by using the
same formula only but replacing the “Change of trim caused by #6” with
“Change in trim caused by cargo hold #2”. Going by above; if say 508 tonnes
of cargo is to be loaded in Hold No 2, then balance cargo to be loaded in Hold
No 6 is – 

1264 – 508 = 756 tonnes (to be loaded in Hold 6)

Summarizing above results – 

Cargo Hold No 2 needs to load 508 tonnes to bring the ship to even keel.
Thereafter, Hold No 2 and Hold No 6 needs to load 526 tonnes and 756
tonnes respectively in order to bring the ship to her draft while keeping the
trim same ie Even Keel. This calculation needs to be done prior carrying out
the Trimming and therefore the calculations shall always be checked and re-
checked. Keeping these formulas in mind will save you a lot of time.