A rigid body model for the dynamics of a marine vessel, used in simulations
of offshore pipe-lay operations, gives rise to a set of ordinary differential
equations with controls. The system is input-output passive. We propose
passivity-preserving splitting methods for the numerical solution of a class of
problems which includes this system as a special case. We prove the
passivity-preservation property for the splitting methods, and we investigate
stability and energy behaviour in numerical experiments. Implementation is
discussed in detail for a special case where the splitting gives rise to the
subsequent integration of two completely integrable flows. The equations for
the attitude are reformulated on SO(3) using rotation matrices rather than
local parametrizations with Euler angles.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures. To be published in 'Multibody System Dynamics
