Abstract ‘The Star-CCM+ simulation software has been used to model a number of benchmark free surface flow cases, including the two dimensional submerged NACA 0012 foil, the surface piercing NACA 0024 foil, and the well investigated KCS vessel. The findings from the foil benchmark cases have permitted substantial improvement in the accuracy and convergence of the results for the KCS vessel when compared to preliminary studies undertaken as part of the master's project. Ic has been observed that a minimum set of temporal and spatial resolutions are required to yield an acceptable numerical solution, and guidelines to ensure that these requirements are met have been formulated, including modification of the default Star-CCM+ solver pa- rameters for supposedly steady state free surface flows. Time step independent solutions for all of the cases investigated have been found, however the mesh resolution requirements to obtain this independence vary significantly, and some practical limitations regarding mesh size in the ship case precludes taking the most demanding requirements found and using them as a general recommendation. Some additional work, focusing on investigation of ad- ditional ship cases, has been proposed with the objective of clarifying guidelines for creating a time step independent mesh for ship flow problems. In general, a modelling approach has been identified using the Star-CCM+ software which yields a satisfactory result for a ship resistance prediction and a good starting point for fur- ther investigation of the nominal wake scaling problem.