Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement for Ships on the Danube at Galați

Inspection services for ships at Galați

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

Where ships can be gauged around Galați

The most structured setting is the shipyard. The Damen yard at Galați is primarily a building yard, but vessels built or converted there pass through its basins and quays, and docking or lifting capacity for repair work should be confirmed with the ship's agent before a plan is made. For ships that need bottom shell measured and have no dock available on the river, the usual route is to gauge the accessible internal structure at Galați and plan the underwater plating for a drydock at Constanța or on the lower Danube.

Most gauging here is done alongside. The cargo quays give access to holds once a ship has been discharged and before loading starts, and the long river berths allow ballast tanks, deck plating and hatch covers to be measured in the quiet hours of a cargo call. Ships often wait their turn for a berth, either at the river anchorage near the port or tied up along the bank, and those waits can be used for deck and tank work by boat. Terminal rules vary and are applied through the ship's agent, so each job starts with a clear statement of what the berth allows.

• Damen Shipyards Galați — building and conversion yard on the Danube; condition gauging of vessels there for repair, handover or sale.
• Steelworks quays — ore, coal and steel product berths; hold and tank-top gauging between discharge and loading.
• Public cargo quays — grain, fertiliser and general cargo; deck, coaming and tank gauging during a call.
• River anchorage and lay-by berths — ships waiting for a quay or lying idle; deck and ballast tank work by boat or alongside.
• Barge fleeting areas — push-tow barges and river-sea ships between trips; shell and internal structure gauging where access allows.

River navigation, port state control and EU rules

Seagoing ships calling at Galați fall under port state control by the Romanian Naval Authority, which works within the Paris MoU and the Black Sea MoU. The same authority handles many matters on the Romanian stretch of the Danube, including inland navigation. For the owner, that means a ship's certificates and structural condition can be examined both as a seagoing vessel and, for river-sea ships, against the rules that apply to inland waterway operation. A clear thickness record helps with both kinds of inspection.

Beyond the Romanian authority, EU requirements apply to ships that enter the Union, including the Inventory of Hazardous Materials under the Ship Recycling Regulation, emissions trading for qualifying voyages and FuelEU Maritime. The Danube adds its own constraints, because a ship trading upriver faces seasonal water levels and, in hard winters, ice in the channel that can close the river to navigation for a spell. Those interruptions sometimes leave ships idle alongside, and an idle ship with empty tanks is exactly the situation in which a thorough gauging programme can be fitted in.

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

The sequence for a thickness measurement job at Galați is short and written down, so the yard, the surveyor and the superintendent know who arranges what.

Most technicians reach Galați through Bucharest Henri Coandă Airport followed by a road or rail journey; Iași and Constanța are other options depending on the routing. Terminals and the shipyard are controlled facilities, so the ship's agent applies for gate passes for each technician and the instruments, using passport details provided ahead of travel. As Romania is in the Schengen area, the team from India needs Schengen visas, and we time the mobilisation around the visa outcome and the ship's berthing window.

• 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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