Ship Thickness Measurement in Haugesund and the Karmsund Area

Inspection services for ships at Haugesund

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

Where gauging happens around Haugesund

Gauging around Haugesund takes place at repair yards, terminal quays and lay-by berths along Karmsundet and the surrounding fjords. Yards provide docks, quays and the staging needed for a full renewal survey; terminal calls allow limited deck and ballast work; lay-by berths suit offshore vessels and coastal ships waiting between contracts or cargoes. Ships calling at Kårstø or the Karmøy aluminium works can sometimes have a small scope measured during cargo operations, provided it does not hold up the terminal.

Ships managed from Haugesund that dock outside Norway are a separate category of work. A Haugesund superintendent may need gauging on a shuttle tanker at a yard in Poland or on a gas carrier docking in Asia, and the team then travels directly to that yard and reports back in the agreed format. Within the region, the choice of yard depends on the vessel's size and the scope of repairs, and we work at whichever site the owner contracts, following the yard's own safety induction and permit system. For ships at the aluminium works or Kårstø, the industrial site's own permit rules apply in addition to ISPS access.

• Westcon Yards, Ølensvåg — docking-survey and renewal-survey gauging on offshore vessels and other ships taken in for repair and upgrade.
• Kårstø gas terminal — ballast tank and deck measurements on LPG carriers during loading, subject to terminal and master approval.
• Karmøy aluminium works quays — hold, hatch-coaming and ballast tank gauging on bulk carriers discharging raw materials.
• Haugesund harbour quays — targeted gauging on coastal cargo ships after class or port state control findings.
• Lay-by berths along Karmsundet — tank, deck and piping measurements on offshore vessels between charters or during reactivation.
• Overseas docking yards — shuttle tanker and gas carrier renewal gauging for Haugesund-managed fleets, reported to the head-office format.

Maritime authority, ECA and fleet context in Haugesund

As the seat of the Norwegian Maritime Authority, Haugesund is the administrative centre for Norwegian flag-state matters, but the thickness measurement scope at a class survey remains a classification society matter governed by class rules and the IACS unified requirements. Norway is a Paris MoU member, and port state control in Norwegian ports follows the Paris MoU risk-based targeting used across the region. The area lies within the North Sea SOx ECA, where the sulphur limit is 0.10%, and conventional tankers calling here either burn compliant fuel or run scrubbers whose piping needs periodic measurement.

Shuttle tankers are double-hull oil tankers covered by IACS UR Z10.4, with the extended gauging of cargo and ballast tanks that applies from the third renewal survey onwards, and their charters with oil companies make CAP and vetting performance particularly important. LPG carriers have independent cargo tanks inside hold spaces, so the hull gauging focuses on hold structure, double bottom, wing ballast tanks and deck, while the cargo tanks themselves fall under the gas carrier rules. The coastal fleet passing through Karmsundet includes many general cargo ships with long service lives, and gauging for those owners usually targets hatch coamings, deck plating and ballast tanks.

Ships trading to Haugesund are inside a sulphur emission control area, where fuel must not exceed 0.10% sulphur unless an exhaust gas cleaning system (scrubber) is fitted. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it are among the fastest-corroding parts of a modern ship, so they belong in the gauging scope at every docking and, on open-loop systems, between dockings.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Haugesund

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

Haugesund Airport on Karmøy has scheduled flights to Oslo, and Bergen and Stavanger airports are alternatives with wider international connections, followed by road travel to Haugesund. Yards, the Kårstø terminal and the industrial quays have ISPS and site access controls, with passes arranged through the ship's agent or the yard. Norway is within the Schengen area, so each technician travels from India on a Schengen visa, and planned dockings should be notified as soon as the yard slot is fixed.

• 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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