Pula Ship Gauging: Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement in Pula Bay

Inspection services for ships at Pula

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

Where gauging can be carried out in and around Pula

The practical question in Pula is not whether a ship can be reached but what kind of work suits each location. Pula has a long shipbuilding history, and yard facilities on the bay have changed in recent years. We therefore do not assume a drydock slot here: where an owner plans a docking, the yard, dock dimensions and availability are confirmed with the ship's agent and the superintendent before we plan the programme, and ships needing a large dock are often directed to Rijeka or an Italian yard instead.

For work that does not need a dock, the commercial quays and the bay itself offer realistic options. Ships alongside during a cargo stop can be gauged on deck, hatch covers, coamings and any holds the crew can make safe once cargo is out. Ships at anchor can be reached by launch for pre-purchase, on-hire or off-hire condition work and for pre-docking steel estimates. Cruise ships and ferries at the city quays offer shorter windows, mainly for technical spaces, scrubber piping and ballast tanks that the ship's engineers can certify for entry. The agent arranges port access and any launch transfers.

• Commercial cargo quays — hatch covers, coamings, holds and tank tops on general cargo, timber and bulk ships after discharge
• City passenger quays — scrubber discharge piping, ballast tanks and technical spaces on cruise ships during a call day
• Island ferry berths — vehicle decks, ramps and ballast tanks on regional ferries during winter lay-up
• Pula Bay anchorages — launch access for pre-purchase, on-hire and pre-docking gauging on ships waiting in the bay
• Lay-up areas in the bay — longer condition programmes on vessels idle between charters
• Shipyard facilities on the bay — docking work only after availability is confirmed with the owner and the agent

Port state control, regulation and the Istrian trade

Foreign ships calling at Pula are subject to port state control under the Paris MoU, carried out by Croatian officers working under the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure and its harbour master's authorities along the coast. Because the northern Adriatic is busy, a ship arriving at Pula may already have been inspected at an Italian or Slovenian port, and recent deficiency records influence how closely she is targeted. Structural findings, especially corroded tank boundaries or weak hatch coamings, can lead to detention, so owners with older ships sometimes commission gauging before arrival to find out what the inspector might find.

EU environmental rules also shape inspection work here. Larger ships calling at an EU port need an Inventory of Hazardous Materials on board under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, and ships above the size thresholds report emissions under EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime. Older tonnage is increasingly evaluated against those obligations at the same time as its steel condition, so gauging results feed directly into decisions about repair, sale or recycling. Istria's economy rests heavily on tourism, timber and construction materials, so the cargo ships we see are typically small to mid-sized, often with decades of service behind them.

Since 1 May 2025 the whole Mediterranean has been a sulphur emission control area, so ships calling at Pula burn 0.10% sulphur fuel or run a scrubber. Scrubber wash-water piping, the overboard discharge and the hull penetration around it corrode quickly in service and are worth adding to the gauging scope at every docking.

How a thickness measurement job runs at Pula

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

Pula Airport serves seasonal European routes, with Trieste, Zagreb and Ljubljana offering wider connections within road distance of Istria. The ship's agent arranges port access passes for the quays and books launches for ships at anchor. Croatia is within Schengen, so technicians travelling from India need a Schengen visa, and the timing of the visa decides when a team can join the ship. Where a call is short, the dates should be passed to us as early as the schedule allows.

• 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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