Ship Thickness Measurement in Tallinn: Muuga, Kopli and the Ferry Harbour

Inspection services for ships at Tallinn

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

Gauging sites in Tallinn, Muuga and Paldiski

In the Old City Harbour, work on the ferries is done by agreement with the ship's officers in the hours when vehicle decks are empty, with each visit planned to close off a complete deck section, ramp or tank group. At Muuga, tanker work follows the ship's and the terminal's permit systems: deck plating and piping can be measured during cargo operations, while tank internals wait for gas-free certification. Bulk carriers are gauged hold by hold as they are emptied or before loading starts.

Tallinn Shipyard on the Kopli peninsula docks ships for repair, and a docking there is the moment when pre-docking gauging done at an earlier call can be checked against the shell from outside, with bottom areas that were out of reach afloat added to the record. Once she is in dock, Kopli's own crews put up staging and clean and gas-free the tanks, and the gauging follows them compartment by compartment. Ships at anchor in Tallinn Bay or Muuga Bay are reached by launch, arranged through the agent, which suits gauging of deck, piping and gas-freed ballast tanks before the ship berths.

• Old City Harbour — Helsinki shuttles, Stockholm overnight ferries and summer cruise calls; staged gauging of vehicle decks, voids and ramp structure on lay-by
• Muuga Harbour — oil-product, dry-bulk and container terminals; tanker deck and piping gauging and bulk carrier hold gauging during cargo operations
• Paldiski South Harbour — ro-ro and vehicle traffic west of Tallinn; vehicle-deck plating and ramp hinge crack detection during port calls
• Tallinn Shipyard, Kopli — BLRT Grupp repair yard; in-dock gauging for renewal surveys and verification of readings taken afloat at an earlier call
• Tallinn Bay and Muuga Bay anchorages — tankers and bulk carriers lying off before berthing; teams go out by launch through the agent

Regulation, ice and market context in Tallinn

Estonia belongs to the Paris MoU, and ships at Tallinn are inspected under its risk-based targeting, which looks harder at older ships and those with a poor record. The Gulf of Finland is part of the Baltic SOx Emission Control Area, with a 0.10% sulphur limit. On the Helsinki crossing that limit has been met partly by LNG-fuelled ferries, while scrubbers are common on ro-ro and ro-pax ships elsewhere on Baltic routes; on scrubber ships, wash-water and overboard piping needs regular gauging. The Helsinki–Tallinn trade runs entirely between EU ports, so the whole of its emissions are caught by the EU ETS, extended to ships in 2024, and by the FuelEU Maritime intensity rules that began in 2025, which pushes operators of older ro-pax to weigh life extension carefully.

Ice is less severe off Tallinn than in the eastern Gulf, but in hard winters Tallinn Bay and Muuga Bay freeze, the Estonian authorities set ice-class restrictions for their ports, and icebreakers assist traffic. Most ro-pax on the Gulf crossing hold a Finnish-Swedish ice class, so their ice belts lose coating and steel each winter, adding to the wear from berthing. For the tanker trade at Muuga, CAP and vetting gauging matter more than ice: oil majors and charterers routinely ask for CAP on tankers past about fifteen years, and the gauging that supports it is extensive.

Ships trading to Tallinn 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 Tallinn

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

Tallinn Airport lies close to the city, within easy reach of the Old City Harbour, Kopli and Muuga by road; Paldiski is a drive west along the coast. Port of Tallinn gate passes and any launch to an anchored ship are booked by the ship's agent, and yard entry at Kopli is arranged with the shipyard. Estonia is a Schengen state, so the team from India travels on a Schengen visa; we confirm the docking or lay-by date early enough to cover the consular process.

• 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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