Complete nonlinear dynamic manoeuvering models of ships, with numerical values, are hard to find in the literature. This paper presents a modeling, identification, and control design where the objective is to manoeuver a ship along desired paths at different velocities. Material from a variety of references have been used to describe the ship model, its difficulties, limitations, and possible simplifications for the purpose of automatic control design. The numerical values of the parameters in the model is identified in towing tests and adaptive manoeuvering experiments for a small ship in a marine control laboratory.