<p>Aiming at the problem that the working environment of ships is complicated and disturbances such as sea wind and waves affect the stable operation of ships, an adaptive super-twisting sliding mode control scheme for marine electric propulsion system based on super-twisting sliding mode load observer is proposed. First, an adaptive super-twisting sliding mode controller is designed to stabilize the system within a finite time, effectively improving the control accuracy and robustness of the system and suppressing the chattering problem of sliding mode control. To observe the load disturbance in a finite time with high accuracy, a super-twisting load torque observer is designed. The observed load disturbance is introduced into the controller to be compensated, which enhances the anti-interference ability of the controller. Finally, the advantage of the scheme is proved by simulation of the ship under constant load torque and simulated actual load torque.</p>