Objectives  Ship safety is one of the most important performance indicators, and cabin optimization is closely related to improving damaged ship safety. Studying the relationship between damaged ship safety and cabin optimization is a complicated multi-factor problem.

  Methods  Based on SOLAS 2009, the probability of damaged stability is evaluated and the danger zones quantified. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method is adopted, and the subdivision index, type and quantity of danger zones are taken as the evaluation indexes for calculating the influence weight of each index on damaged ship safety; this is carried out in order to improve the safety of damaged ships and evaluate the optimal cabin optimization scheme.

  Results  Adjusting the widths of side cabins, lengths of cabins and double bottom heights of cabins in dangerous areas can improve the stability and safety of damaged ships.

  Conclusions  The experimental results show that the study of dangerous areas can improve the safety of damaged ships; moreover, based on multiple criteria, the AHP is feasible for evaluating the safety of ships after sustaining damage to the cabins.