Ship Thickness Measurement at the Port of Police, Near Szczecin

Inspection services for ships at Police

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

Gauging at the Police terminals

At the Marine Terminal, bulk carriers are gauged hold by hold during discharge. Potash and fertiliser residues are hygroscopic and corrosive, so before readings the team cleans each point to bare steel and looks for the pitting and grooving that such cargoes cause in the lower hold, on tank tops and around frame brackets. Hopper and topside tanks are entered under the ship's permits once ventilated. Ships loading fertilisers are measured before loading begins, with hatch covers and coamings included, because a wet fertiliser cargo is a serious claim and a corroded hatch is the usual route for water into the hold.

At Mijanka and at the gas terminal, the terminal's safety regime decides what can be done. On ammonia and LPG carriers we measure deck plating, ballast tanks certified safe by the crew, and sea-water and fire-main piping, and leave the cargo containment system entirely alone. Chemical tankers are treated the same way, with cargo tank internals left for a gas-free period. We do not plan dockings at Police itself; MSR Gryfia in Szczecin is a short distance upriver, and gauging during a Police discharge gives that yard, or any other the owner chooses, a measured steel list before the ship arrives.

• Marine Terminal — bulk carriers discharging phosphate rock, potash and ilmenite and loading fertilisers; hold, tank-top and hatch cover gauging during cargo operations
• Mijanka liquid terminal — ammonia and chemical tankers; deck, ballast-tank and piping measurements inside the terminal's permit system
• Gas terminal — propane and ethylene carriers serving the polypropylene plant; deck and ballast work only, never the containment system
• Barge Terminal — river barges and small craft; hull and hold gauging for owners of inland and river-sea vessels
• MSR Gryfia, Szczecin — in-dock follow-up of readings first taken during a Police discharge

Polish inspection rules and the chemical trade at Police

Port state control at Police is carried out under the Paris MoU by the Polish maritime administration, through the Szczecin Maritime Office (Urząd Morski w Szczecinie), which also looks after the fairway from Świnoujście. Gas carriers and chemical tankers are higher-risk types in the regime's targeting, and their inspections look hard at deck structure, piping and safety systems. Bulk carriers in the fertiliser and potash trades fall under the ESP rules, and their renewal and intermediate surveys bring close-up survey and transverse sections that a long discharge at Police gives time to prepare.

Fertiliser cargoes are carried under the IMSBC Code, and some, such as ammonium nitrate-based fertilisers, come with specific requirements for hold cleanliness and separation from heat sources. Charterers loading at Police therefore inspect holds closely, and a ship with flaking coating, loose scale and corroded frames may fail a hold inspection and lose time. Ships calling from outside the EU need an Inventory of Hazardous Materials on board under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, and voyages between EU ports are counted under the EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime. The gas terminal has added gas carrier calls to a port that previously saw mainly bulk and chemical traffic, and plans for an LPG terminal using the same infrastructure would add more.

Ships trading to Police 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 Police

Most of the work on a Police job happens before the team boards: scope, plan and access are settled first, so the time on board goes on measurement.

Szczecin-Goleniów Airport is the nearest to Police, and Berlin Brandenburg offers more international connections; from either, the team continues by road to the port north of Szczecin. Poland is in the Schengen area, so our technicians from India travel on Schengen visas, applied for once the discharge or loading date is fixed. The ship's agent arranges access to the port and its terminals with the port authority, and the chemical works and gas terminal have their own safety rules and inductions. A follow-on docking at Gryfia is arranged with the yard.

• 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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