The demands for lower Energy Efficiency Operational Index (EEOI) reflect the requirements of international conventions for green shipping. Within this context it is believed that practical solutions for the dynamic optimization of a ship's main engine and the reduction of EEOI in real conditions are useful in terms of improving sustainable shipping operations. In this paper, we introduce a model for dynamic optimization of the main engine that can improve fuel efficiency and decrease EEOI. The model considers as input environmental factors that influence overall ship dynamics (e.g., wind speed, wind direction, wave height, water flow speed) and engine revolutions. Fuel consumption rate and ship speed are taken as outputs. Consequently, a genetic algorithm is applied to optimize the initial connection weight and threshold of nodes of a neural network (NN) that is used to predict fuel consumption rate and ship speed. Navigation data from the training ship "YUMING" are applied to train the network. The genetic algorithm is used to optimize engine revolution and obtain the lowest EEOI. Results show that the optimization method proposed may assist with the prediction of lower EEOI in different environmental conditions and operational speed.Harilaos N. Psarafits et al. stated that the ship speed is a decision variable for fuel consumption and emissions [5]. In fact, most methods applied to improve ship efficiency are to adjust ship speed. Route and speed optimization are operational procedures that may be used to improve shipping efficiency and EEOI. Inge Norstad et al. used a recursive smoothing algorithm to optimize the speed for ship routing and scheduling for a tramp ship [6]. Wang Shuai'an et al. conducted an in-depth analysis on the relationship between fuel consumption and ship speed based on the historical operational data of a container liner and optimized the ship speed by using nonlinear programming [7]. Ming-Chung Fang et al. applied a heuristic method to optimize ship routing in different weather conditions [8].Lower steaming is another kind of validated method for decreasing fuel consumption and the EEOI. However, such operational strategy is limited by many factors, including the ETA (estimated time of arrival), fuel price, charter rates, influence of speed reduction on engine efficiency, and so forth [9,10].Joan P. Peterse developed a fuel consumption model by way of a machine learning method and ship navigation data [11]. Benjamin applied a neural network (NN) trained by noon report data to establish a propulsion power model under hydrostatic conditions [12]. Wang Kai et al. used the wavelet packet neural network to predict the sea conditions for a short-journey of a sailing ship and introduced a real-time energy efficiency model under predicted sea conditions [13].This paper suggests a method that could be used to identify lower EEOI using real time operational data. An EEOI during a fixed time span is introduced to indicate fuel efficiency. A back propagation neural network, which is trained by navig...