Hull and Tank Thickness Measurement for Ships Calling at Vaasa

Inspection services for ships at Vaasa

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

Where a ship can be gauged at Vaasa

Most gauging at Vaasa is done alongside at Vaskiluoto. A cargo ship working general cargo or timber gives a day or more at the quay, enough to measure deck plating, hatch coamings and the ballast tanks the crew has opened and ventilated, and to work through the holds as they are cleared. Project-cargo calls are slower still, because heavy lifts are planned to the hour and the ship often waits for road convoys, so tween decks, tank tops under the stow and crane foundations can be measured in the gaps. The ferry is a different case: her time at the quay between crossings is short, so work aboard her is done on night lay-overs and during off-service days agreed with the operator.

We do not plan full renewal-survey dockings at Vaasa. Ships trading here are usually docked by their owners at repair yards elsewhere in the Baltic, for example Turku Repair Yard at Naantali on Finland's south-west coast. What a Vaasa call offers is the chance to gauge before that docking, so the yard receives a measured steel list rather than an estimate. In winter, ships occasionally wait off the port for an icebreaker or a berth, but boarding a ship in drifting ice is rarely practical, so winter gauging is planned for the quay.

• Vaskiluoto passenger terminal — the Umeå ro-pax on night lay-overs and off-service days; car deck, void and ice-belt gauging in planned stages
• Vaskiluoto cargo quays — general cargo, forest products and dry bulk; hold, hatch coaming and ballast-tank gauging during loading and discharge
• Heavy-lift and project cargo berths — multipurpose ships loading engines and transformers; tween deck, tank top and crane pedestal readings between lifts
• Lay-by berths in the port — short-sea ships waiting between cargoes; owner's condition or pre-purchase gauging arranged through the agent
• Repair yards elsewhere in the Baltic — in-dock verification of readings first taken at Vaasa, when the owner wants the same team at the docking

Ice classes, land uplift and inspection rules for Vaasa

Finland belongs to the Paris MoU, and port state control inspections at Vaasa are carried out by Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, which also issues Finland's ice class regulations. Those regulations link a ship's ice class (IA Super, IA, IB or IC) to the scantlings and engine power it must have, and the winter traffic restrictions decide which ice classes and sizes of ship receive icebreaker assistance into each port. For an owner keeping a ship on the Vaasa trade, the ice class works as a commercial licence, and it depends on ice-belt plating staying within the thickness the class requires. Gauging the ice belt, frames and bow structure before the restrictions tighten each winter is the practical way to know the remaining margin.

The Kvarken ferry runs entirely between Finland and Sweden, so its emissions fall wholly under the EU ETS, which has covered shipping since 2024, and under FuelEU Maritime, in force since 2025. Aurora Botnia burns LNG with battery support, which moves the gauging focus away from scrubber piping and towards the ordinary structure of a hard-working ice-going ferry: car decks, ramps, ice belt and ballast tanks. Cargo ships coming to Vaasa from outside the EU must carry an Inventory of Hazardous Materials under the EU Ship Recycling Regulation, and buyers of second-hand ice-class tonnage increasingly ask for IHM status alongside the steel condition.

Ships trading to Vaasa 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 Vaasa

A gauging job at Vaasa 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.

Vaasa Airport, close to the town, is reached on domestic connections through Helsinki, and the team drives the short distance on to Vaskiluoto. Finland is in the Schengen area, so our technicians travel from India on a Schengen visa, and we start the consular process as soon as the ferry docking or the cargo window is fixed. ISPS gate passes for the cargo quays and the ferry terminal are requested by the ship's agent, and any work aboard the ferry is booked with the operator. In winter we leave a margin for flight disruption and icebreaker delays.

• 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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