Thickness Measurement for Bulk, Breakbulk and Project Cargo Ships in the Port of Bremen

Inspection services for ships at Bremen

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

Where a ship can be gauged in Bremen

Bremen is a cargo port rather than a repair port, and almost all gauging here is done afloat while the ship lies at a working berth. At the breakbulk quays of the Neustädter Hafen, the window opens when a hold has been emptied or before stowage starts, and access to tween decks and hatch covers follows the cargo plan. At the bulk berths in the industrial harbours, an empty hold is available as soon as the grab finishes, and the crew can usually ventilate a ballast tank or two while discharge continues elsewhere. Lay-by berths in the basins take ships waiting for cargo or orders, and those are the best places for longer jobs.

For dry-docking, ships trading to Bremen normally go downriver to the floating docks in Bremerhaven or to a yard elsewhere on the North Sea, and readings taken in the city can be handed to that yard as a steel estimate. Where a ship has a voyage repair arranged at a Bremen quay, gauging can run alongside it, for example to confirm how far the wastage extends around a damaged area, or which lengths of piping should be cropped out rather than patched.

• Neustädter Hafen breakbulk and heavy-lift quays — hatch cover, tween-deck and tank-top gauging on multipurpose ships between loading stages.
• Bulk berths in the industrial harbours — hold frames, brackets and hopper plating measured on bulk carriers once grab discharge is finished.
• Grain and feed terminals in the city port — hold plating and bilge-well checks on agribulk ships at the end of discharge.
• Lay-by berths in the port basins — longer owner's condition and pre-purchase surveys on ships waiting for cargo or orders.
• Quays used for afloat voyage repairs — gauging around damaged structure and piping to fix the extent of renewal.
• Floating docks downriver at Bremerhaven — the usual docking choice, with readings from the city used as the steel estimate.

Inspection rules and trades on the upper Weser

Port state control in Bremen, as in every German port, is carried out under the Paris MoU by the Ship Safety Division of BG Verkehr, the body that also handles flag state work for German-registered ships. The older handysize bulk carriers and general cargo ships that trade to river ports like Bremen are exactly the tonnage that the Paris MoU's risk-based targeting picks out, since age, ship type and inspection history all raise a ship's priority. Corroded hatch covers, air pipe heads and deck fittings appear again and again in deficiency lists for that kind of ship, and a pre-arrival check of those areas takes the crew a day and can spare the owner a detention.

Multipurpose and heavy-lift ships, which Bremen sees more of than most ports, have their own weak points. Tween-deck pontoons and hatch covers are lifted and re-stowed constantly, heavy-lift cranes load their pedestals and the deck around them, and tank tops take point loads under heavy units. Owners now reporting emissions under EU ETS (from 2024) and working to FuelEU Maritime targets (from 2025) are asking whether these older ships justify another survey cycle, and thickness data on decks, covers and holds feeds that decision. Under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, every ship calling here, whatever its flag, must also carry an Inventory of Hazardous Materials.

Ships trading to Bremen are inside a sulphur emission control area, where fuel must not exceed 0.10% sulphur unless an exhaust gas cleaning system (scrubber) is fitted. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it are among the fastest-corroding parts of a modern ship, so they belong in the gauging scope at every docking and, on open-loop systems, between dockings.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Bremen

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

Bremen Airport is within the city, not far from the port areas, and has European connections; Hamburg Airport offers more long-haul choice and is linked to Bremen by rail and motorway. The ship's agent arranges ISPS access to the terminal and confirms the berth, which matters in Bremen because a ship can shift between basins during a call. The technicians from India travel on Schengen visas, so please send expected arrival dates early; mobilisation is then fixed against the ship's river passage and berthing 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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