In this paper, the authors investigate theoretically the motion and longitudinal strength of ships among waves talking account of the effects of nonlinearities such as the hull shape, bottom emergence, and hydrodynamic impact. Incidentally the ship is treated as an elastic beam in heading wave condition regarding characteristics of slamming and whipping-according to the variation in the range of a quarter length of the ship forward and the increase of the elastic modes up to 4-th vibration mode were investigated by the present theory. Calculations are performed for 97m container ship and its validity is confirmed by a series of model tests. Conclusions obtained are as follows; 1) Acceleration and pressure estimated by the present theory are in good accordance with experiments. 2) The present non-linear theory may be applied for estimating longitudinal bending moment of ships in slamming and whipping conditions. 3) In investigation of the characteristic in response according to shape variation for parts under draft and vow-flare in the range of a quarter length of the ship forward, dynamic responses due to the former were much more conspicuous than those due to the later. 4) In the maximum bending moment, the considering case up to 2-the mode are larger, about $10{sim}15%$, than that up to 4-th mode.