Thickness Measurement for Small Ships and Fishing Vessels at Fleetwood

Inspection services for ships at Fleetwood

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

Where gauging is practical at Fleetwood

Fishing vessels and workboats lying alongside in the dock or at the fishing harbour are the simplest jobs. The team gauges shell plating from inside where it is reachable, fish-hold and deck structure, tank boundaries and sea-water piping, and uses magnetic particle inspection on gantries, winch foundations and A-frames where cracking is suspected. On a coaster loading or discharging aggregates, holds are measured as they empty, and ballast tanks are entered once the crew has ventilated them and issued an entry permit.

Fleetwood is not equipped to drydock seagoing merchant ships, so a renewal survey with the hull out of the water is normally carried out at a yard elsewhere, on the Mersey, in Northern Ireland or in Scotland, depending on size and yard availability. For a coaster or dredger the realistic Fleetwood job is condition gauging alongside, timed to the tide and to the vessel's own programme, and used to prepare the steel list for that next docking. A vessel laid up in the dock for a quiet season gives the longest window of all, with time to open and ventilate every tank in turn.

• Fishing harbour quays — hull, fish-hold, deck and piping gauging on trawlers and other fishing vessels between trips.
• Berths inside the dock gates — longer condition surveys on workboats, dredgers and small ships laid up for a season.
• Cargo quays — hold, hatch coaming and ballast tank gauging on aggregate coasters during discharge.
• River berths on the Wyre — short scopes timed to the hours the vessel is afloat.
• Deck machinery — MPI and dye penetrant checks on gantries, winches and A-frames where crews report cracking.

Rules for fishing vessels and small ships at Fleetwood

Many vessels at Fleetwood sit outside the big-ship survey regime. UK fishing vessels are surveyed under codes administered by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, with requirements that depend on length, and only some larger fishing vessels are classed. Owners of smaller vessels still face structural questions at survey, after a grounding, or when buying and selling, and thickness readings give them evidence that a surveyor or a buyer can rely on. Coasters and dredgers that are classed follow the normal class survey cycle, and their owners use gauging in the same way as larger operators do.

Foreign-flagged coasters calling at Fleetwood are subject to port state control by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency under the Paris MoU, and visiting ships are expected to carry an Inventory of Hazardous Materials under Britain's retained ship recycling rules. Small, older coasters attract inspections because of their age and the short-sea trades they work. Fishing remains a seasonal business, so maintenance and inspection tend to be packed into the quieter months, and an owner who books gauging early can line it up with a planned lay-up rather than giving up fishing days.

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

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

Manchester Airport is the usual gateway, followed by rail to Blackpool North or Poulton-le-Fylde and a short road journey, or the coastal tramway, to Fleetwood. Flights from India usually connect there through a European or Gulf hub. The team travels on UK visas, so a first visit needs some weeks of notice. Access to the quays is arranged through the vessel's owner or agent, and because movements depend on the tide, the agent confirms the berth and the hours the vessel will be afloat before the team travels.

• 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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