The intermediate channel is a special restricted channel，and the ship navigation resistance is the key parameter to determine its scale. This paper analyzes the applicability of the existing calculation methods for ship navigation resistance and selects YU Zhongqi’s formula considering factors such as the channel width and draft ratio as the reference formula for the calculation of ship resistance in the intermediate channel. The paper designs the test plan of the ship navigation resistance in the intermediate channel and carries out the navigation test on a 3 000-ton bulk carrier model. According to the test results，the paper revises YU Zhongqi’s formula and uses Flow3D to simulate the ship navigation in the intermediate channel under different section coefficients and extract the resistance to verify the accuracy of the corrected formula. The calculation results of the revised empirical formula are compared with those of the numerical model and the physical model separately，and the maximum error is no more than 16.89%. The results show that the formula has high calculation accuracy and has an important reference value for the design of intermediate channels.