Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement at Kokkola, Finland's Main Bulk Port

Inspection services for ships at Kokkola

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

Gauging at the Deep Port, Silverstone and the General Port

At the Deep Port the usual pattern is hold by hold. As each hold is emptied the team moves in to measure tank top, hopper and lower stool plating, frames and brackets, then the topside and double-bottom tanks the crew has opened, ventilated and certified for entry. Concentrate residues hide pitting and grooving, so reading points are cleaned locally, and hold frames at the lower brackets, where grab damage concentrates, get a closer reading pattern. Chemical tankers at the liquid berths are a different job: cargo tanks stay closed during operations, so the scope is deck, piping and ballast tanks, with cargo tank internals left for a gas-free period.

Container feeders and project ships at Silverstone Port are gauged alongside within their port stay, and the covered terminal at the General Port suits general cargo ships whose holds are worked in any weather, which helps when a job falls in a wet autumn. We do not plan full renewal-survey dockings in Kokkola; the ships trading here are usually docked by their owners at repair yards in southern Finland or elsewhere around the Baltic. Measuring a ship during a Kokkola discharge, weeks before her docking, gives the chosen yard a steel list it can plan around.

• Deep Port dry-bulk berths — bulk carriers discharging concentrates and minerals; hold, hopper and tank-top gauging as each hold is emptied
• Deep Port liquid-bulk berths — chemical tankers; deck plating, cargo and ballast piping and ballast tanks inside the terminal's permit system
• Silverstone Port — container feeders and project ships with wind turbine components; staged deck and tank gauging within the port stay
• General Port and its all-weather terminal — general cargo and light bulk ships; hold and hatch coaming gauging under cover when the weather turns
• Waiting area off the port — ships held for a berth in the open-water season, reached by launch through the agent when conditions allow

Inspection regime, ice classes and the industrial trade at Kokkola

Ships calling at Kokkola come under Paris MoU port state control, carried out in Finland by Traficom. Bulk carriers and chemical tankers count as higher-risk ship types in the regime's targeting, and age adds to a ship's risk score once she passes twelve years, so the older bulk tonnage on the Kokkola trade is inspected with some attention to hold condition. Because so much of the traffic is ESP bulk carriers, the renewal and intermediate surveys that fall due on these ships carry the full ESP gauging requirements, with transverse sections and close-up survey of selected frames, and a Kokkola discharge is a sensible moment to prepare that work.

The Finnish winter traffic restrictions are the other rule that governs Kokkola. They are set each season for every port, naming the lowest ice class and the minimum size of ship that will be given icebreaker assistance, and they tighten as the ice thickens. A bulk carrier fixed for a winter cargo must meet them on arrival, so charterers check the ice class and owners need confidence that the ice belt still carries the scantlings the class demands. Kokkola's industrial customers sit in the battery-materials and energy-transition supply chain, and their steady demand for concentrates and chemicals brings the same ships back again and again, which suits gauging spread over several visits.

Ships trading to Kokkola 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 Kokkola

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

Kokkola-Pietarsaari Airport, a short drive from the town, is served through Helsinki, and Kokkola is also on the main rail line between Helsinki and Oulu, which gives the team a second route north if winter flights are disrupted. Our technicians travel from India on Schengen visas, so we fix the job date as soon as the ship's laycan or berth window is firm. The ship's agent requests ISPS passes for the Deep Port, Silverstone or the General Port, and the terminal's own safety induction is completed on arrival.

• 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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