Hybrid fuel cell propulsion systems for marine applications are attracting widespread interest due to the need to reduce ship emissions. In order to increase the potential of these systems, the design of an efficient energy management strategy (EMS) is essential to distribute the required power properly between different components of the hybrid system. For a hybrid fuel cell/battery passenger ship, a multi-scheme energy managements strategy is proposed. This strategy is developed using four schemes which are: state-based EMS, equivalent fuel consumption minimization strategy (ECMS), charge-depleting charge-sustaining (CDCS) EMS, the classical proportional-integral (PI) controller based EMS, in addition to a code that chooses the suitable scheme according to the simulation inputs. The main objective of the proposed multi-scheme EMS is to minimize the total consumed energy of the hybrid system in order to increase the energy efficiency of the ship. The world's first fuel cell passenger ship FCS Alsterwasser is considered and its hybrid propulsion system is modelled in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The performance of the developed multi-scheme EMS is compared to the four studied strategies in terms of total consumed energy, hydrogen consumption, total cost and the stresses seen by the hybrid fuel cell/battery system components considering a daily ship operation of 8 h. Results indicate that a maximum energy and hydrogen consumption savings of 8% and 16.7% respectively can be achieved using the proposed multi-scheme strategy. •A multi-scheme energy management strategy is introduced for hybrid fuel cell ship.•Changing the used strategy during operation can save consumed hydrogen and energy.•Changing the used strategy during operation does not increase operational stresses.•Hybrid fuel cell systems' operational cost is dominated by hydrogen cost.