Abstract: Objectives Aiming at the problem of system stability degradation caused by the use of grid-following (GFL) control strategy for grid-connected solar ship photovoltaic systems, the inverter grid-forming (GFM) control method is introduced to design grid-connected control strategies for photovoltaic ship power systems. Verify the effectiveness of the GFM control concept and ideas on the ship platform. Methods According to the operating characteristics of the ship power system, combined with several mainstream GFM control methods, the corresponding GFM photovoltaic ship power system grid-connected control models are constructed. Using Matlab/Simulink to establish a solar ship power system simulation model, the frequency and voltage fluctuations of the ship power system under GFM and GFL modes were analyzed and compared. Results The study results indicated that, compared to using the GFL control strategy, the utilization of the GFM control strategy under load switching conditions can lead to an average reduction of 26.86% in frequency fluctuation amplitude and 37.85% in voltage regulation time. Conclusions The utilization of GFM control strategy is capable of effectively mitigating the stability deterioration of the ship's power system triggered by the grid-connected photovoltaic system. This approach enables the photovoltaic system to proactively uphold the stability of the power parameters of the ship's power system while fulfilling the energy supply, resulting in a substantial enhancement of the stability of the ship's power system.