Annotation – The well-established method of tuning the speed governors (SG) of diesel engines during their operation under conditions of step disturbances, which are characteristic of diesel-generators, cannot be used for the main marine engines, the dynamic modes of which are associated, first of all, with heavy seas, because disturbances cannot change stepwise both along the channel for setting the rotational speed and along the load channel. In this regard, the practical need for the development of a method for tuning the SG of the main engines, which takes into account the peculiarities of their operation in heavy seas, has been determined. The study simulates the automatic speed control system (ASC) of the main marine engine HYUNDAI – MAN B&W 6G70ME-C9.2 of the large crude carrier "GOLDWAY" with the AutoChief 600 electronic SG. The minimum of instability of the controlled parameter was used as an optimality criterion, i.e. the amplitude of the oscillations of the rotational speed of the diesel engine shaft, with the most probable values of the amplitude and period of oscillations (rolling) of the disturbing effect. The study has established that changing the tuning parameters of the governor may lead to local extrema of the optimality criterion when using an electronic governor in the ACS in the factor space of disturbances on a diesel engine, which are typical for heavy seas. It means that the task, requiring finding local extrema using specialized methods, can be set when using an electronic governor in the ACS. However, a significant decrease in the instability of the rotational speed was achieved by carrying out a simple enumeration of the tuning parameters of the SG. It was also found that with a "heavy" propeller, the rotational speed stability can be increased by decreasing the proportional gain, as well as increasing the integrator time.