Thickness Measurement for Fishing Fleets, Offshore Vessels and Cruise Ships in Ålesund

Inspection services for ships at Ålesund

Each service has its own page with the method, the class requirements and what the report contains.

Quays, yards and waiting positions around Ålesund

Gauging in the town itself is done at the fishing and commercial quays, at the cargo terminals and on the cruise and coastal express berths during calls. A fishing vessel tied up between seasons can have its tanks pumped out and ventilated by the crew, and the quays give easy access for equipment. Cargo ships discharging at the terminals offer shorter windows, suited to deck, hatch coaming and accessible tank work. Ships waiting in the sounds for a berth or a yard are reached by boat, which the agent arranges.

For dockings, the region has a dense ring of shipyards. Vard, headquartered in Ålesund, runs yards in the surrounding municipalities; the yards at Ulsteinvik are a short ferry crossing away; and repair yards on the nearby islands, such as Fiskerstrand Verft at Sula, dock ferries, fishing vessels and offshore vessels. Which yard a vessel uses is the owner's choice, and the team travels to it. Readings taken at an Ålesund quay can form the first stage of a programme completed in dock.

• Fishing and commercial quays — fish hold, RSW tank and seawater piping gauging on trawlers and purse seiners between seasons.
• Cargo terminals — deck, hatch coaming and ballast tank readings on coastal cargo ships and bulk carriers during discharge.
• Cruise and coastal express berths — machinery-space piping and scrubber line measurements during calls, planned with the operator.
• Offshore vessel lay-by berths — ballast tank, chain locker and deck gauging on supply and anchor-handling vessels between contracts.
• Regional repair yards, including Fiskerstrand Verft at Sula — docking and renewal-survey gauging on ferries, fishing and offshore vessels.
• Waiting positions inside the islands — short jobs by boat on vessels waiting for a berth or a yard slot.

Fjord emission rules, fishing regulation and port state control

Ålesund lies north of 62°N and therefore outside the North Sea emission control area, but Norway's own rules reach into the fjords the cruise ships visit. The country is phasing in zero-emission requirements for ships in its World Heritage fjords, the Geirangerfjord among them, starting with smaller passenger ships, and cruise operators have been adapting fleets and itineraries accordingly. For the older cruise ships that still call here, scrubber systems and their wash-water piping remain a maintenance priority. Port state control on foreign-flag ships is the responsibility of the Norwegian Maritime Authority, working within the Paris MoU.

The fishing fleet is overwhelmingly Norwegian-flagged. Norwegian fishing vessels are surveyed under the Norwegian Maritime Authority's rules, with much of the survey work carried out by classification societies on its behalf, and the larger ocean-going vessels are classed. Pelagic trawlers built during earlier rounds of fleet renewal are now old enough for steel condition to drive repair decisions, and when such vessels change hands, pre-purchase gauging protects the buyer. Engine and propulsion upgrades supported by Norway's NOx Fund have been common across this fleet, and upgrade dockings are often the moment owners choose to have hull and tank condition measured too.

Wherever a ship is outside a sulphur emission control area, the global 0.50% sulphur cap applies, and many of the ships calling at Ålesund meet it with an exhaust gas cleaning system rather than compliant fuel. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it corrode quickly in service, especially on open-loop systems, and are worth adding to the gauging scope.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Ålesund

Most of the work on a Ålesund job happens before the team boards: scope, plan and access are settled first, so the time on board goes on measurement.

Ålesund Airport, Vigra, lies on an island north-west of the town and is linked to it by subsea road tunnels; it has frequent flights to Oslo and Bergen as well as some international routes. Port access is arranged by the vessel's agent, and work at the regional yards by the yard on the owner's request. Norway is in the Schengen area, so technicians coming from India need Schengen visas; for fishing vessels whose port stays follow the season, early notice of the expected lay-up dates lets visas be arranged in time.

• Send the vessel name or IMO number, ship type, class society, the survey due (annual, intermediate, renewal survey number, CAP or owner's condition survey), the port and dates, and the scope you expect.
• We confirm the scope against the class rules for that survey, prepare the thickness measurement plan with frame and section references, and say whether the measurement will be credited to a class survey.
• Mobilisation is planned around visa lead times and the vessel's schedule; the ship's agent arranges port access, and the yard or ship arranges staging, lighting, ventilation and gas-free certificates.
• Gauging with calibrated ultrasonic thickness gauges: through sound coatings only where the gauge's through-coating mode has been verified on a coated reference, otherwise on cleaned bare steel, with every reading tied to its frame, strake and location on the sketch.
• Readings are compared with original thicknesses as work proceeds; substantial and excessive corrosion and any cracks are reported to the attending surveyor and the superintendent the same day.
• The final report is issued on the class thickness-measurement formats with sketches, a summary of locations exceeding the allowable margins, piping tables where piping was in scope, and the gauge calibration and technician certificates.

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