Ship Thickness Measurement at Drogheda Port and Tom Roe's Point

Inspection services for ships at Drogheda

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

Where coasters are gauged at Drogheda

Tom Roe's Point is the deep-water terminal and takes the larger ships calling at Drogheda, with room for them to swing in the river. Bulk cargo here is handled by mobile material handlers, and gauging follows them: a hold is measured once it has been emptied and swept, and tank entry is arranged with the crew under the ship's permit system. The LPG terminal and the Premier Periclase jetty operate under their own site rules, so work on ships berthed there is limited to what each terminal allows while cargo is transferring.

At the town quays the ships rest on soft mud at low water, which keeps them still and makes internal work straightforward, although trim and list change as the tide leaves the hull and that affects ventilation and access in some tanks. Upper-deck items, hatch covers and coamings, air pipes and engine-room piping can all be reached during a normal call. The external bottom shell and sea chests cannot be measured without a docking, and launch work at an anchorage is rarely practical for ships of this size, which only wait off the bar briefly for the tide.

• Tom Roe's Point terminal — hold, tank and hatch cover gauging on the larger bulk and general cargo ships calling at Drogheda.
• Town quays west of the Boyne Viaduct — internal gauging on coasters lying on the mud over low water.
• LPG terminal — deck and cargo piping UT on small gas carriers within the terminal's rules.
• Premier Periclase jetty — deck and hold readings on ships serving the magnesia works, as the site permits.
• Waste-derived fuel loading — hold plating and coating checks on bulk ships before and after loading.

EU rules and port state control for ships at Drogheda

As an Irish port, Drogheda falls under EU maritime law, and port state control is the responsibility of the Marine Survey Office within the Department of Transport, working under the Paris MoU. Small, older coasters on short-sea trades are a familiar target for PSC across north-west Europe, and the deficiencies recorded on them often concern hatch covers, hold structure, ballast tanks and deck fittings such as air pipes. Current thickness readings, together with evidence of planned steel renewal, help a master show an inspector that wastage visible on board is known and being managed.

Since the end of 2020, ships under the flag of a non-EU state have needed an Inventory of Hazardous Materials on board to call at an EU port, and that includes coasters under non-EU flags arriving at Drogheda. Ships of 5,000 gross tonnage and above also carry EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime obligations, although many of the smallest coasters on the Boyne fall below that threshold. In the waste-derived fuel trade the cargo is governed by the EU's waste shipment rules, and owners loading it want holds in a condition where the cargo will not damage the structure or contaminate the next cargo carried.

Wherever a ship is outside a sulphur emission control area, the global 0.50% sulphur cap applies, and many of the ships calling at Drogheda 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 Drogheda

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

Dublin Airport is the arrival point for Drogheda, which lies to its north along the M1 motorway, and the town also has a station on the Dublin to Belfast railway. Ireland runs its own visa system outside the Schengen area, so the team travels from India on Irish visas, applied for once the ship's call is confirmed; a trip that continues to Warrenpoint or Belfast needs UK permission too. Access to the town quays and the terminal at Tom Roe's Point is arranged through the ship's agent and the port company.

• 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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