Ultrasonic Thickness Measurement for Coasters and Passenger Vessels in Stralsund

Inspection services for ships at Stralsund

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

Where ships can be gauged in Stralsund

Coasters and small bulkers are gauged at the cargo quays during their stay, which may be a day or two for a grain loading. Holds are best measured clean and empty before loading starts, ballast tanks during the call once the crew has emptied and ventilated them. Hatch covers can be measured whenever they are open. Because the ships are small, a single team can often cover a substantial part of a hold or a set of tanks in one call, provided the crew has prepared the spaces and access in advance.

Passenger vessels are a different job. Through the winter they lie at their home berths in the harbour, and an owner preparing for a flag inspection or a slipping can open tanks and bilges and give the team days rather than hours. No yard on the former Volkswerft site was offering merchant ship repair at the time of writing, so docking work goes to yards elsewhere on the German or Polish coast or further afield. Readings taken in Stralsund before that docking let the owner settle the steel scope early. Ships waiting off the port for a berth can be reached by boat for very small scopes.

• Cargo quays north of the old town — hold, hatch cover and ballast tank gauging on grain, timber and building-materials coasters.
• Passenger and excursion berths — bottom, side shell, frame and tank gauging on ferries and excursion ships during winter lay-up.
• Workboat and service berths — hull and deck plating on survey craft, dredgers and harbour vessels between assignments.
• Lay-by berths in the harbour — pre-purchase and condition gauging on small cargo ships waiting for cargo or for sale.
• Docking yards elsewhere on the coast — Stralsund readings passed on so steel renewal is planned before the ship arrives.

Port state control, small-ship rules and the national park

Cargo ships at Stralsund come under German port state control within the Paris MoU, carried out by the Ship Safety Division of BG Verkehr, which also certifies the German-flag passenger vessels that work these waters. Many of the coasters calling here are older ships under European flags, and because the Paris MoU targets ships by age and type, a call at Stralsund can bring an inspection. Hatch covers, air pipes, holds and ballast tanks are where those ships tend to show their age, and gauging records help a superintendent show that each is under control.

The approaches run through and beside a national park, so ships keep to the marked channels and discharges are tightly controlled. EU rules reach even the smallest cargo ships calling here: general cargo vessels from 400 GT have reported emissions under EU MRV since 2025, and ships of every flag calling at the port need an Inventory of Hazardous Materials. In cold winters the shallow sound and lagoons freeze more readily than the open Baltic, which can slow traffic and makes winter the season for work on ships that are already tied up.

Ships trading to Stralsund 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 Stralsund

A gauging job at Stralsund 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.

Hamburg and Berlin Brandenburg are the main international airports for Stralsund, both connected by rail to the town's main station; Rostock-Laage, closer, has few international flights. Technicians from India need Schengen visas for Germany, and we plan their travel around the confirmed loading or lay-up dates. The ship's agent or, for passenger vessels, the owner's office arranges harbour access, and for cargo ships confirms that holds and tanks will be emptied and ventilated before the team boards.

• 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