Ship Thickness Measurement and Hull Gauging in Turkey

Maritime inspection services

Start with the survey or problem; each service page explains the method, the class requirements and the report. Marine NDT and Advanced NDT list every inspection method.

The Aegean, Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts

On the Aegean, the Izmir region divides between the city port at Alsancak and the industrial coast at Aliağa and Nemrut Bay, where refineries, a petrochemical complex, steel mills and ship-recycling yards stand side by side. Tankers and chemical carriers are gauged at their jetties and bulk carriers at the scrap and bulk berths. Further north, Çanakkale looks over the Dardanelles, and ships waiting at the strait's anchorages give short windows for deck and tank readings.

On the Mediterranean, Mersin is the main gateway for container, bulk and ro-ro traffic, Iskenderun Bay serves steelworks and the crude terminals at Ceyhan, and Antalya, further west, adds cargo and cruise calls.

The Black Sea coast is more exposed and more industrial. Ereğli and Zonguldak serve a steelworks, coal mines and power stations, Samsun is the main general cargo and ro-ro port of the central coast, and Trabzon in the east handles general cargo and transit trade. Bulk carriers working coal and ore here wear their hold steel quickly, and hold, hopper and tank-top gauging between cargoes is the typical job.

Port state control, the Turkish Straits and emission rules

Turkey is a member of the Black Sea MoU and the Mediterranean MoU, and port state control comes under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure. A regulation issued in 2025 gives inspection priority to ships with reported damage or deficiencies, to ships banned under the Paris MoU, and to ships over twenty years old certified by organisations outside IACS, and its inspections include structural checks of holds and ballast tanks. A ship detained three times within 36 months can be banned from Turkish ports, so the condition of the steel carries real commercial weight.

The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles are governed by the Montreux Convention and managed by the Turkish Straits vessel traffic service. Strong currents, heavy traffic and transit rules for large ships and dangerous cargoes mean that many ships anchor before passing, at the Black Sea entrance, off Ahırkapı or in the Dardanelles approaches.

The Mediterranean SOx emission control area, in force since 1 May 2025, covers Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, and its eastern limit is a line drawn across the entrance to the Dardanelles. Beyond that line, in the Sea of Marmara, the Straits and the Black Sea, the global 0.50% sulphur limit applies. A scrubber ship on a Black Sea to Mediterranean trade therefore changes cleaning standard on every voyage, and its wash-water piping works under both.

Aliağa's ship-recycling yards, north of Izmir, work to the Hong Kong Convention, in force internationally since 26 June 2025, and several of them are on the European List of ship recycling facilities that EU-flag ships must use. A ship sold for recycling there needs an up-to-date Inventory of Hazardous Materials, and owners selling an older ship often combine the IHM update with a last condition record.

Planning a gauging job in Turkey from India

Turkey is outside the EU and the Schengen area, so the team travels on a Turkish visa arranged for each job, and the visa lead time is the first constraint on the start date. Tell us the ship, her class, the purpose of the gauging, and where and when she will be: an anchorage off Tuzla, a dock at Altınova, a terminal in the Gulf of Izmit or a Black Sea berth. If she is waiting for a dock or a transit, give us the expected window and we plan to it.

Boarding is arranged through the ship's agent, under the ISPS rules of each port or terminal and the yard's permit system in the repair zones. In the yards, early readings matter most: once a ship is in dock the yard plans its steel crews around the first results, and a steel list settled in the first days avoids holding the ship for a second round of gauging.

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