Ship Inspection in Sharjah: Thickness Gauging on Both Coasts

Inspection services for ships at Sharjah

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

Gauging at Khor Fakkan, Port Khalid and Hamriyah

Hull gauging in Hamriyah is usually tied to a repair or fabrication yard. Workboats, tugs, landing craft and small offshore vessels are slipped or lie alongside at the free zone's marine yards for repairs and surveys, and gauging is done before blasting and steel work start, so that the repair list reflects measured wastage rather than visual estimates. Small tankers and gas carriers serving the Hamriyah terminals are gauged at lay-by berths when idle between cargoes, with gas-freeing and entry permits arranged by the ship. Free-zone yards often handle several vessels at once, so the gauging schedule is agreed with the yard's planner to avoid clashing with blasting on a neighbouring hull.

At Port Khalid, gauging is done alongside on general cargo, ro-ro and container ships during longer calls, or on ships laid up waiting for employment. On the east coast, thickness gauging at Khor Fakkan is done on container ships alongside the terminal when the stay allows, and on tankers and bulk carriers waiting off the coast, reached by launch. Khor Fakkan is close to Fujairah, so a single mobilisation can cover ships at both, and the team can return to the Gulf-side ports by road the same day.

• Khor Fakkan container terminal — piping, deck and hold gauging on container and feeder ships during longer stays at the east-coast berths
• Off Khor Fakkan — pre-purchase and condition readings on tankers and bulkers lying off the east coast, reached by launch through the agent
• Port Khalid — gauging on general cargo, ro-ro and project-cargo ships alongside, and on vessels laid up in the port awaiting employment
• Hamriyah Free Zone marine yards — renewal-survey gauging of tugs, landing craft, workboats and small offshore vessels during repair periods
• Hamriyah liquid and gas berths — condition gauging on small tankers and gas carriers when idle between cargoes, under the terminal's permit system

Regulation and market context for Sharjah ship owners

Sharjah's ports come under the UAE's port state control system as part of the Riyadh MoU, and older general cargo and feeder ships carry a higher risk profile under port state control targeting. Typical structural deficiencies on that tonnage are wasted deck and hatch-coaming plating, corroded air pipes and ventilators, and holed bulkheads. Gauging a known weak area ahead of time gives the owner both evidence and a repair plan before an inspector finds it. With no emission control area anywhere in the Gulf, ships here work to the 0.50% global sulphur limit, and scrubber-fitted container ships calling at Khor Fakkan need their wash-water piping watched.

Commercially, Sharjah sits within the UAE's ship-owning and trading community, with many regional operators, ship chandlers and repair contractors working across the emirates. Owners here often run mixed fleets of small ships that change hands frequently, and pre-purchase gauging is a practical protection for a buyer when the ship's maintenance record is thin. The climate adds to the case: humid summers, warm seawater and the dust and salt carried onto open decks shorten coating life on hatch covers and weather decks. Container feeder thickness gauging should therefore concentrate on hatch coamings, deck plating near the hatch corners and the tank top plating of the ballast tanks below.

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

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

Sharjah International Airport (SHJ) has direct flights from many Indian cities and is close to Port Khalid and Hamriyah; Dubai International (DXB) is an alternative. Khor Fakkan is reached by road through the mountains to the east coast. Port Khalid, Hamriyah and Khor Fakkan need ISPS passes arranged by the ship's agent, free-zone yards need entry permits through the yard, and for anchorage jobs the agent also books the launch. The team's UAE visas are processed before departure, so we ask for the ship's dates as early as they are known.

• 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