Ship Thickness Measurement at Galway Docks and in Galway Bay

Inspection services for ships at Galway

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

Where gauging can be done at Galway

There is no drydock at Galway, and ships that need a docking go to a yard in another Irish port or across the sea. The port is therefore a place for in-service gauging: hull and deck structure from alongside, tank structure after cleaning, and machinery-space piping at any time the engine room is accessible. The commercial quays take ships for a tide or longer, and the port will normally allocate a berth near the cargo it is serving, which affects how much of the ship a team can reach.

For ships that wait in the bay, the anchorage becomes the working place. Launches are arranged through the agent, and the team boards in daylight when the sea allows. Cleaned tanks, void spaces and deck areas can then be gauged without taking up a berth. Lay-by berths on the quays suit longer jobs that need several days of uninterrupted access, such as a pre-purchase gauging programme, and an agent can say which berth the port is likely to offer in the period concerned.

• Galway Docks commercial quays — hull, deck and tank gauging on coasters and small tankers during discharge, planned around the tide.
• Fuel and bitumen discharge berths — piping and deck gauging on product tankers under the terminal's permit rules.
• Lay-by berths at the docks — longer pre-purchase or off-hire condition gauging that needs several days on board.
• Galway Bay anchorage — launch-borne gauging of cleaned tanks and deck structure on waiting ships, and tender-supported cruise ships.
• Research and patrol vessel berths — hull, tank and piping checks on specialist ships between sailings.

Irish rules and the small-port context in Galway

Galway is subject to the same port state control regime as any Irish port, administered by the Marine Survey Office under the Paris MoU. Small ships and coasters often feel inspection more sharply than large ones because their structure is lighter, and a visible record of recent readings helps a manager show that wastage is under control. Charterers and buyers of older coasters ask for measured thickness before they commit, so Galway jobs are often triggered by a commercial event as much as by a survey date.

EU requirements apply in full: ships calling here must hold an Inventory of Hazardous Materials, and the EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime frameworks apply to larger ships on voyages to and from Irish ports. For smaller ships, the practical effect is the same as everywhere else in the Union, which is that an older hull is judged against the cost of a replacement. Class societies set the survey schedule, and a ship that has its steel measured early in the cycle has more choice about when to carry out repairs.

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

A gauging job at Galway runs the same way whatever the ship type. The sequence below is what the superintendent, the attending surveyor and the yard can expect from us.

Shannon Airport is the closest international airport and Dublin is the other usual gateway, with a road transfer to Galway. Technicians travel from India on Irish visas, applied for when the ship's visit dates are known, and we allow margin for the tide and the weather. Port access, quay permits and launches for anchorage work are arranged through the ship's agent, who also confirms the berth the port has allocated for the call.

• 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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