In order to discuss the simulation model of the ship transmission line and the state of the transmission line, an early fault model is built according to the evolution principle of the short circuit fault of the transmission line and combining with the fault characteristics of the early fault. A small distributed ship transmission line system is built in MATLAB/ Simulink. Then, combined with the constructed fault module, the original short circuit module, and the load module, the various states (normal state, early fault state, severe early fault state, short circuit state) of the ship transmission line are stimulated, and the features of voltage signal in each state is analysed. It is concluded that, due to the normal operation of the ship transmission line system, the variation characteristics of the flow signal and voltage signal caused by the sudden load mutation, that is, the sudden load and the sudden increase load, are very similar to the changes caused by the early fault. Therefore, in order to find a more accurate early fault detection method, the state is divided into normal state, sudden load state, sudden increase and sudden decrease load state.