•The damaged ship behavior, is studied assuming different arrangements of the flooded engine room compartment.•The effects of the flooded water motions on ship dynamics, in presence of obstructions, are studied.•Experimental tests on roll decay and on ship motions in beam waves for the damage cases are performed.•Comparison and analysis of the results for the different damage scenarios are conducted. The dynamics of a damaged ship in waves is a complex phenomenon regarding fluid and structure interactions. Flooded water motions in the damaged compartment could be influenced by decks, obstructions and obstacles in the compartment. This becomes particularly relevant in case of flooding in the engine room that is usually characterized by the presence of large objects such as engines and machineries. In such cases the possibility to better understand the behavior of a damaged ship, influenced by the fluid and structure interactions, could provide novel outcomes and thus enhance the damaged ship safety. In this paper an experimental campaign is conducted on a passenger ferry hull. The effects of obstacles in the engine room compartment, such as decks and engines, on ship roll responses, are studied. Roll decay in still water and steady roll responses in beam regular waves at zero speed are measured for the empty compartment and for the compartment with obstructions, as defined above. The main outcomes from the conducted experiments disclose a mitigation of the resonant behavior of the coupled system, ship with damaged compartment, by having engine shapes occupying the flooded engine room. Moreover it is possible to observe how the resonant frequency of the ship modifies having a more realistic arrangement of damaged compartment and how motion RAOs and roll decay characteristics modify accordingly.