Thickness Gauging for Ships at Port Talbot's Deep-Water Harbour

Inspection services for ships at Port Talbot

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

Where ships can be gauged at Port Talbot

Gauging at Port Talbot is done alongside the harbour's deep-water berths, during cargo operations or while a ship waits for orders. A bulk carrier discharging there can have its holds gauged as each one empties, with side shell, frames, hopper and topside tank plating, tank top and bulkheads in reach of the team; hatch covers and coamings are done when they are open, and ballast tanks once the crew can release them. The harbour sits within an industrial area, so access, vehicle movements and hot-work rules follow the port operator's site controls, which the ship's agent arranges in advance of the visit.

There is no drydock at Port Talbot. The nearest is Swansea Dry Docks, across the bay, with two graving docks that take short-sea bulk carriers, tugs and dredgers; larger ships go to a bigger yard elsewhere. Ships waiting to enter Port Talbot anchor in Swansea Bay, where a launch can put a team aboard in quiet weather, though the bay's exposure to the south-west and the strong tidal streams of the Bristol Channel mean anchorage work needs a margin in the plan. Most owners choose to gauge once the ship is alongside, where conditions are predictable and tank entry can be organised properly.

• Deep-water harbour berths — hold, hatch-cover and ballast tank gauging on bulk carriers during discharge or loading.
• Lay-by time alongside — fuller scopes on ships waiting for orders or for the next cargo.
• Swansea Bay anchorage — deck, coaming and air-pipe readings by launch, in settled weather.
• Swansea Dry Docks, across the bay — docking and renewal-survey gauging for ships that need steel renewed.
• Future floating wind quays — hull, tank and deck-structure inspection on heavy-transport and installation vessels, as that work develops.

Port state control, the freeport and a new fleet for the Celtic Sea

Foreign-flagged ships calling at Port Talbot are subject to port state control by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which follows Paris MoU procedures under UK law. Bulk carriers that have spent their lives carrying ore and coal are typical inspection targets: coal cargoes leave acidic residues that eat into hold plating, frames and tank tops, and the hopper and tank-top structure of ore carriers takes heavy grab damage. An owner sending such a ship to Port Talbot with recent gauging on board, and a plan for the thin areas, gives an inspector little to question.

The floating wind plans bring vessels that sit under different rules from cargo ships. Heavy-transport ships carrying floating foundations, anchor handlers laying moorings and construction vessels are classed under their own notations and inspected by their operators to demanding project standards, and the developers' marine warranty surveyors want evidence that deck structure, sea-fastening points and towing gear are sound before a tow begins. Thickness gauging of deck plating under heavy loads and crack detection on welded fittings are part of that evidence. Until the new port is built, the work here will remain the steady, smaller business of gauging the ships that already call.

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

A gauging job at Port Talbot runs the same way whatever the ship type. The sequence below is what the superintendent, the attending surveyor and the yard can expect from us.

Cardiff Airport is the closest international airport, with Bristol Airport as an alternative; most teams fly into Heathrow and take the train from London Paddington to Port Talbot Parkway. The harbour is a controlled port inside an industrial area, so the ship's agent arranges passes and any site induction before the visit. Technicians are mobilised from India on UK visas, and because calls at Port Talbot are irregular, we plan with a margin around the expected arrival and keep visas current for owners who use the harbour often.

• 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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