Ship Thickness Measurement in Bar and the Bay of Kotor, Montenegro

Inspection services for ships at Bar

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

Where thickness gauging happens in Bar and the Bay of Kotor

In Bar, gauging is done on ships alongside at the cargo and ferry terminals or at the anchorage off the port. Bulk carriers and general cargo ships open up their holds and hatch covers for gauging after discharge, and to ballast tanks the crew can make safe; ferries on the Bari service can be gauged between sailings, with vehicle decks and ramps the usual focus. Product tankers at the liquid terminal allow deck and deck piping gauging under the terminal's safety rules. The ship's agent arranges port access, passes and launches.

In the Bay of Kotor, cruise ships can be gauged on call days, mainly for scrubber piping and technical spaces, although work on a ship at anchor depends on tender traffic and the master's agreement. The Bijela refit facility and the Tivat marina area handle large steel-hulled yachts, whose hull plating, tanks and structure can be gauged during refit periods when the yacht is out of the water. For commercial dockings, owners normally use yards elsewhere in the Adriatic, such as Rijeka, and hull gauging in Montenegro beforehand gives the yard a head start on its specification.

• Port of Bar bulk and general cargo terminals — hold, hatch cover and ballast tank gauging on bulk carriers and general cargo ships once discharged
• Bar ferry terminal — ro-pax ferries on the Bari route, gauged on vehicle decks, ramps and ballast tanks in the hours between sailings
• Bar liquid cargo terminal — deck and deck piping gauging on product tankers discharging fuel, within the terminal's safety rules
• Anchorage off Bar — open-coast anchorage where launch transfers allow sale and charter condition gauging in suitable weather
• Kotor cruise berths and inner-bay anchorage — cruise ships calling at the walled town, gauged in technical spaces around tender operations
• Bijela and Tivat, Bay of Kotor — gauging of steel plating, tanks and structure on large yachts during refit periods out of the water

Port state control, EU links and emissions context in Montenegro

Montenegro became a full member of the Paris MoU on 1 July 2023, so foreign ships in Bar and Kotor are now inspected under the same regime as ships in Italian and Croatian ports. For owners of older bulk and general cargo ships trading in the region, structural condition at Bar is assessed against the same inspection standards as at Paris MoU ports across the Adriatic, and gauging known corrosion areas before the call is a sensible precaution. The ECA boundary is geographical, so Montenegrin waters have been part of the Mediterranean SOx ECA since 1 May 2025 like those of its EU neighbours: ships off Bar and in the Bay of Kotor need 0.10% sulphur fuel or an equivalent scrubber.

Montenegro is not in the EU, although it is a candidate for membership and uses the euro. Under EU ETS, which has covered shipping since 2024, half of the emissions on a voyage between an EU port and a non-EU port such as Bar fall within the scheme, and FuelEU Maritime, applying since 2025, treats such voyages in a similar way. Owners on the Bari ferry route and on cargo trades with Italy and Croatia therefore feel both regimes, and they weigh steel condition alongside them when deciding how long to keep older tonnage. Montenegro is outside the Schengen area and applies its own visa rules, which affects how a team from India is mobilised.

Since 1 May 2025 the whole Mediterranean has been a sulphur emission control area, so ships calling at Bar burn 0.10% sulphur fuel or run a scrubber. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it corrode quickly in service and are worth adding to the gauging scope at every docking.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Bar

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

Podgorica Airport is the main gateway for Bar, with road and rail links to the coast, and Tivat Airport sits on the Bay of Kotor; Dubrovnik Airport in Croatia is also within reach of the bay. The ship's agent arranges port passes at Bar and Kotor and launches for ships at anchor, and yacht refit facilities issue their own site access. Montenegro is outside the Schengen area and sets its own entry rules, so we confirm current visa requirements for our Indian technicians as soon as an enquiry arrives and build that lead time into the plan.

• 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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