Ship Thickness Gauging at Immingham, the Humber's Deep-Water Port

Inspection services for ships at Immingham

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

Terminals and berths where gauging is done at Immingham

At the river bulk terminals, gauging follows the grabs. A bulk carrier discharging ore or coal is worked hold by hold: once a hold is empty and the stevedores have moved on, the team gauges the side shell frames and brackets, the lower hopper and upper topside plating, and the tank top, recording grab damage and pitting as it goes. Ballast tanks are entered only if they have been pumped, ventilated and permitted by the ship. At the oil terminal jetties the limits come from the terminal: deck plating and cargo and ballast line wall thickness are normally possible, and tank entry depends on a gas-free certificate.

In the enclosed dock, ro-ro freighters and general cargo ships are worked around their turnarounds, and ships lying idle between charters give more time. Immingham has no ship-repair drydock, so ships that need docking go to Hull's graving dock if they are small, to the Tees or the Tyne, or to yards across the North Sea. A gauging survey at Immingham before the docking gives the yard its steel list in advance, so the superintendent can agree the repair specification before the ship leaves the Humber.

• Humber International Terminal and Immingham Bulk Terminal: hold, hopper and topside tank gauging on bulk carriers during discharge.
• Immingham Oil Terminal: deck, cargo-line and gas-free tank gauging on crude and product tankers within terminal permits.
• Immingham Gas Jetty: deck structure and piping wall-thickness checks on gas carriers under the terminal's rules.
• Ro-ro berths in the enclosed dock: main deck, ramp and tank scopes divided across scheduled calls.
• Killingholme and Humber Sea Terminal: ro-ro freight ships on short-sea routes to the Continent, gauged during turnarounds.
• Estuary anchorages: launch work on ships waiting for a berth or the tide, when the weather allows.

Port state control, ESP and charterer screening at Immingham

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency carries out port state control at Immingham under the Paris MoU. Bulk carriers and oil, chemical and gas tankers more than twelve years old are among the ship types that attract an expanded inspection, in which the inspector looks harder at structural condition, ballast tanks and the ship's survey records. These are also ESP ships, so their renewal and intermediate surveys come with close-up survey and prescribed thickness measurement, and charterers frequently ask older tankers and bulk carriers for a Condition Assessment Programme rating as well. A ship that calls at Immingham regularly can use those calls to keep its gauging current.

Commercial screening adds pressure. Bulk carriers are rated by RightShip, whose scores dry-cargo charterers rely on, and tankers are inspected under OCIMF's SIRE 2.0 before oil companies will charter them. Ships of 5,000 gross tonnage or more trading between the Humber and EU ports also have half of each such voyage's emissions counted under the EU Emissions Trading System and FuelEU Maritime. None of these schemes replaces class gauging, but each rewards an owner who can show, with numbers, that the hull is being watched.

Ships trading to Immingham 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 Immingham

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

Humberside Airport is close to the port but has few routes, so the team usually flies into Manchester, Leeds Bradford or a London airport and travels on by rail towards the south bank of the Humber, with the last stretch by road. Technicians travel from India on UK visit visas, which need applying for well in advance. ABP's port estate is ISPS-controlled; the ship's agent arranges passes, and terminals such as the oil and gas jetties may require an induction before anyone boards.

• 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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