Hull Gauging and Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement in Chalkida, Evia

Inspection services for ships at Chalkida

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

Gauging at Chalkis Shipyards and around the Euripus

Chalkis Shipyards is the centre of the work. The yard dry-docks merchant ships up to roughly Supramax size and handles ballast water treatment installations, cargo hold treatment, steel and piping repairs and conversions, with its own quays for afloat work before and after docking. It operates under the ISPS Code, so entry is by pass arranged in advance. The yard has also announced an investment in a larger, Panamax-size floating dock, which would widen the range of ships it can take. For gauging, the order of work matters most: readings in holds and tanks taken in the first days in dock give the yard and the attending surveyor time to agree renewal while staging is still rigged.

Outside the yard, the work is done afloat. Ships at anchor waiting for the strait or a berth are boarded by launch arranged through the agent, which suits deck, hatch cover and ballast tank gauging when the crew can prepare tanks in advance. Cargo ships working at the Chalkida quays or at private berths along the gulfs can be gauged during cargo operations, hold by hold as they are emptied. A ship heading for the yard can also be gauged at anchor beforehand, so it arrives with a steel estimate rather than a list of suspected areas, which is especially useful when the dock period is short and plate stock has to be confirmed before work starts.

• Chalkis Shipyards drydock: bottom, shell, hold, hopper and topside tank gauging on bulk carriers, tankers and general cargo ships in dock
• Shipyard repair quays: afloat repair and retrofit periods, with piping, deck and tank readings taken alongside ballast water system or steel work
• South Euboean Gulf anchorage: pre-docking and condition gauging by launch on ships waiting for the yard or the strait
• Northern approach above the old bridge: deck and tank readings on coasters waiting for a southbound passage
• Chalkida cargo quays and private berths: hold and hatch cover gauging during discharge or loading

Rules, retrofits and older tonnage at Chalkida

Chalkida is under the Paris MoU, with port state control and the regulation of passage through the Euripus in the hands of the Hellenic Coast Guard and the local harbour master. A ship under repair is still a foreign-flagged ship in an EU port, so PSC can attend one leaving the yard as easily as one arriving with cargo. Ships calling at EU ports need an Inventory of Hazardous Materials under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, and that inventory has to be updated whenever a yard period adds or removes equipment, which makes it directly relevant to the conversions and retrofits carried out at Chalkida.

The retrofit work itself shapes gauging scopes. Ballast water treatment systems, scrubbers and other equipment fitted in recent years have brought new pipe runs, overboard penetrations and foundations into older hulls, and those areas corrode in their own way. When a ship docks at Chalkida for a renewal survey, owners often add these systems to the thickness measurement scope alongside the traditional hold and tank structure. Many of the bulk carriers seen at the yard are Handysize and Supramax ships of Greek ownership in their second decade, where the third or fourth renewal survey decides whether a ship keeps trading. Measured data on cargo holds, side shell frames and topside tanks lets the owner make that call on facts rather than estimates.

Since 1 May 2025 the whole Mediterranean has been a sulphur emission control area, so ships calling at Chalkida 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 Chalkida

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

Athens International Airport is the arrival point, and Chalkida is reached by motorway north through Attica and Boeotia, crossing to Evia by the high-level bridge. Passes for Chalkis Shipyards and for the cargo quays are applied for through the ship's agent with technician certificates and equipment lists; launches for ships at anchor are booked the same way. As Greece is a Schengen state, technicians need Schengen visas issued in India, and we recommend confirming the job when the yard fixes the docking slot, because the visa process sets the earliest date the team can arrive.

• 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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