This project revised, updated and expanded the software for the assessment of heat stress risk on livestock voyages to the Middle East, known as ‘HotStuff’. At the conclusion of this project, Version 4 of the software was released for use by industry.

The primary changes in Version 4 of the software were:

• the addition of ports in the Mediterannean, the Black Sea, West Africa and Russia

• route options via the Suez Canal or West Africa

• inclusion of port risk as a parallel assessment of the risk during the discharge phase (actually introduced at Version 3)

• inclusion of more voyage weather data and re-analysis of all voyage and port data

• removal of the hard-coded limit of 5 knots on the assumed effective crosswind while sailing

• updating the software programming environment .

Within the HotStuff software, the heat stress risk while sailing is assessed using weather data from voluntary observing ships. The latest data from that source was obtained and all data was re-analysed carefully to produce statistics for the routes to each of the destination ports included. HotStuff version 4 also includes an assessment of the risk while docked in the discharge port. This uses land-based weather data near each port. Because extreme wet bulb conditions are causally related to still conditions, the port risk assessment assumes zero crosswind. Open decks in the HotStuff software have until now been treated by relying on air exchange generated by sailing forward, equivalent to some 'effective crosswind'. This study also included a preliminary assessment of the equivalence of the air exchange generated by crosswind and the air exchange generated by sailing forward.