The present study concentrates on the weak-scatterer hypothesis for the nonlinear wave-body interaction problems. In this method, the free surface boundary conditions are linearized on the incoming wave profile and the exact body motion is applied. The considered problems are the diffraction problem near a circular cylinder and the ship response in oblique waves. The numerical method of solution is a Rankine panel method. The Rankine panel method of this study adopts the higher-order B spline basis function for the approximation of physical variables. A modified Euler scheme is applied for the time stepping, which has neutral stability. The computational result shows some nonlinear behaviors of disturbance waves and wave forces. Moreover, the ship response shows very close results to experimental data.