Abstract: A ship navigating on the surface of the water may experience greater resistance, adversely affect-ing its speed and leading to energy loss. The added resistance of surface ships in both still water and waves are investigated, and the computation method of total speed loss is presented. An autopilot system is intro-duced to constrain the speed loss, and course keeping and rudder roll stabilization sliding mode control laws are proposed according to a compact control strategy. The two working conditions of "heading" and "heading plus anti-roll" are discussed, including roll stabilization, heading error, speed maintenance and rudder abrasion. The results show that the speed can be effectively maintained using this method, and from a commercial point of view, the fin-rudder roll stabilization control is not recommended for vessels equipped with both fins and rudders.