Hybrid excitation synchronous generators are a special class of electrical machines in which the total rotor current linkage is produced by the simultaneous action of two different excitation sources: permanent-magnet (PM) excitation and field winding excitation. In the island operation, there is a need to compensate the armature reaction to keep the generator terminal voltage constant. The permanent magnet excitation is used to create the no-load excitation to the generator and the rotor winding is used as an armature reaction compensating winding. This paper studies the applicability of an armature-reaction-compensated PM synchronous generator to a marine diesel genset. This paper presents an analytical approach for the electromagnetic design of the proposed topology. Finite-element analysis and experimental measurements are performed to verify the results of the analytical approach.