For testing a newly designed ship's steering gear, a steering gear test bench with a steering gear to be tested and a load generation part should be prepared. The load given to the steering gear has to be pertinent to the load generated in a targeted ship. In this study, the authors suggest a process of estimating the load given to steering gears in ships. At first, a test for measuring the load in the steering gear of a real ship was conducted. Then, a process was developed to compute rudder driving torque and force by using basic equations including some empirical equations on ship's steering. The test results and the computation results on the load in the steering gear were compared, As a result, the process suggested in this study for estimating load in ship's steering gears was verified.