In this paper, springing responses of a container ship with forward speed in regular waves are studied by a time-domain TEBEM which is generalized to elastic modes. TEBEM is used principally to solve the steady and unsteady flow and the infinity radiation condition is achieved by the Damping Zone Method. In the structure part, the Transfer Matrix Method is used to get the generalized structural mass, damping, stiffness and principal mode of displacement and rotation of vertical oscillation modes which will participate in the subsequent hydrodynamic calculation. In the hydrodynamic part, the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method is used to solve the hydroelasticity equations. The effects of forward speed and 2nd order wave forces generated by 1st order velocity potential in head sea are analyzed. Meanwhile, the variation of different load components against wave direction for corresponding different stations and contribution of different part of ship for different load components in head sea are studied. Compared with the experimental results, the motions and loads of a 6750-TEU container ship with different forward speeds predicted by TEBEM show an acceptable agreement.