Thickness Gauging for Ships at the Port of Waterford on the River Suir

Inspection services for ships at Waterford

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

Where gauging is done at Belview and in the estuary

At the container terminal, feeders are worked by the terminal's cranes, and gauging is planned around the stowage: upper deck plating and hatch coamings in bays that have been worked, lashing bridges and container fittings with MPI where cracking is suspected, and engine-room and scrubber piping while the main engine is stopped. At the bulk berths, the team follows the discharge, measuring each hold once it is empty and clean, and enters ballast tanks under the ship's permit system as the crew releases them.

If a ship has to anchor in the lower harbour to wait for the tide or for a berth, it lies in sheltered water, and launch boarding there is more practical than at an open-sea anchorage, although the estuary's tidal streams are strong and the agent chooses the timing. For anything needing dry access, such as the bottom shell, sea chests, rudder or propeller, the ship has to dock elsewhere. In that case we gauge the internal structure at Belview first, so the yard has a steel estimate in hand before the docking begins.

• Belview container terminal — hatch coaming, upper deck and scrubber piping gauging on lo-lo feeders during cargo work.
• Belview bulk berths — hold, hopper and topside tank gauging on grain, feed and fertiliser carriers behind the discharge.
• General cargo and break-bulk berths — hatch cover and deck readings on timber and project cargo ships.
• Lower harbour anchorage — launch-borne deck and tank readings on ships waiting for the tide, when the stream allows.
• Repeated feeder calls — staged programmes that build a complete pre-docking dataset over several rotations.

Regulation and trading conditions at the Port of Waterford

Waterford is an Irish port within the EU, with port state control carried out by the Department of Transport's Marine Survey Office under the Paris MoU. Container feeders and bulk carriers calling at Belview are selected for inspection on the same risk profile used across the Paris MoU region, and older bulk carriers in particular draw attention to hold structure, hatch covers and ballast tanks. The Enhanced Survey Programme applies to those bulk carriers, so their renewal surveys require extensive thickness measurement and close-up survey, and an owner planning one gains a great deal from knowing hold condition well before the ship reaches the yard.

Since the start of 2021, ships under non-EU flags calling at EU ports have had to carry an Inventory of Hazardous Materials, and that applies at Belview as at any Irish port. Feeders on rotations between Waterford and continental hubs trade entirely between EU ports, so all of their emissions on those legs fall under the EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime, while ships that also call at British ports count those legs at half. Where a feeder runs an exhaust gas cleaning system, corroded wash-water lines are among the defects owners most want to find before they fail, because a leak at the overboard discharge can force an unplanned stop.

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

Most of the work on a Waterford job happens before the team boards: scope, plan and access are settled first, so the time on board goes on measurement.

Dublin Airport and Cork Airport are the usual arrival points for a Waterford job, with the onward journey by road or rail; Waterford city has a railway station on the line from Dublin. Ireland issues its own visas, separate from the Schengen area and the UK, so the team travels from India on Irish visas once the dates are confirmed. Access to the Belview terminal and, where needed, a launch for the lower harbour are arranged through the ship's agent.

• 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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