A ship must be designed for efficiency and economy, thus there is an everlasting desire for the design of better and better ships. One of the important factors which directly influence the worthiness of a design is its resistance. Throughout decades of ship design, the resistance is given top most importance as a design objective. With the increase in computational speeds of both software and hardware, there has been an opportunity for optimizing ship hulls using iterative methods of design and modification. A method for calculating resistance for a given hull geometry and to optimize it using optimization algorithms are required for achieving better hulls. The resistance is calculated using a panel method for a given hull and the hull geometry is later changed by applying Lackenby's method of longitudinal shift of stations. An optimization algorithm extracts the best possible design out of the numerous design alternatives possible.