Hull Gauging for Fishing Vessels and Workboats at Killybegs

Inspection services for ships at Killybegs

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

Where fishing vessels and workboats can be gauged at Killybegs

Killybegs has a shiplift and repair yards that handle fishing vessels, and this is the reason many owners choose to carry out maintenance here. Gauging is best planned in two stages. Before the lift, tanks and accessible structure are measured so that the yard can fix the steel scope and book the slot. Once the vessel is out of the water, the bottom, bilge keels, rudder and the shell around the waterline are open to final readings, and any renewal can be checked as it is fitted.

Away from the lift, a vessel alongside a landing quay is available between discharge and sailing. Refrigerated seawater tanks, fish holds, fuel and ballast tanks and the deck structure around winches and gantries can be gauged once the spaces are clean and certified safe. Fishing vessels often have heavily modified superstructure and tank arrangements, so we gauge to the owner's drawings where they exist and record the layout found on board where they do not.

• Killybegs shiplift and repair yards — pre-lift tank gauging and post-lift shell and bottom plating readings on fishing vessels and workboats.
• Main landing quays — RSW tank, fish hold and deck gauging on pelagic trawlers between discharge and sailing.
• Lay-up berths — longer condition gauging on trawlers idle between fishing seasons or awaiting sale.
• Deep-water quay — hull and piping gauging on cargo ships, fish-meal carriers and visiting cruise or naval vessels.
• Harbour anchorage — launch-assisted gauging of cleaned tanks on vessels waiting for a berth in calm conditions.

Fishing vessel rules and Irish port state control at Killybegs

Fishing vessels fall under a different rule set from cargo ships. In Ireland, the Marine Survey Office of the Department of Transport certifies and surveys the national fleet, and many boats are not classed, so a gauging report may be used by the owner, the insurer or the buyer rather than a class surveyor. Larger pelagic trawlers and some other vessels do follow a class society's rules, and for those the reading format and extent follow the society's requirements. Foreign cargo ships calling at Killybegs are subject to Paris MoU port state control in the usual way.

Steel condition matters commercially as well as legally. Buyers of second-hand trawlers, banks financing vessel purchases and insurers renewing hull cover all ask for evidence of the plating's condition, and a thickness report is a straightforward way to give it. EU rules on ship recycling and the Inventory of Hazardous Materials apply to ships of the relevant size, and the owner of an ageing boat deciding between a major refit and replacement needs the measured wastage to make that call sensibly.

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

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

Donegal Airport at Carrickfinn has limited services, so most travellers fly into Dublin or Knock and continue by road, or arrive through Belfast or Derry and cross the border. Technicians travel from India on Irish visas, with extra visa planning if the route passes through the UK. Quay access and any work near the processing plants is arranged through the vessel's agent or the owner's representative, and plans leave room for gales and fishing schedule changes.

• 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.

Related