From the MarineCraft Journal: in-depth articles, expert perspectives, and the latest industry developments for the professionals who keep the maritime world moving. Written for shipowners, offshore operators, engineers, and enthusiasts alike.
Thermal Spray Aluminium, Where Paint Has No Realistic Life
Thermal spray aluminium is not a premium paint. It is a metallic coating bonded by impact, and it gets specified where a conventional system…
Passive Fire Protection: The Datasheet Is Not the Approval
A product datasheet reports how something performed in one test, under one configuration, against one fire. Approving passive fire protection means knowing which fire, which configuration, and which properties the test deliberately…
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Cathodic Protection and Coating Must Be Designed Together
Cathodic protection and coating are bought from different suppliers, designed by different engineers and inspected by different people. The failure that follows belongs to nobody, which is precisely why it keeps happening.
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Why a Tank Lining Is Tested and a Coating Is Only Inspected
A protective coating on a structure is inspected. A lining inside a tank is tested, electrically, across every square metre of its surface.
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Attrition Is a Welfare Problem Before It Is a Pay Problem
A worker who leaves mid-project takes the mobilisation cost with them, along with the induction, the site familiarity and the permit competency.
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What an Accommodation Inspection Actually Looks At
Contractors prepare for an accommodation inspection by cleaning. Inspectors arrive with a tape measure and a headcount, because the requirements are dimensional and they scale with how many people are actually living…
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Dry Film Thickness and the 80/20 Rule
Film thickness is the one coating parameter everybody measures and almost nobody agrees on. The argument always arrives after the scaffolding is down and the money is spent, and it is nearly…
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Corrosivity Category Belongs to the Asset, Not the Site
A facility gets one coating specification because that is easier to buy and easier to apply. The structure then fails wherever the exposure was worst, on a schedule nobody planned for, and…
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Act 446 After 2020, and the Duty You Cannot Outsource
An employer who books beds with an uncertified provider has not transferred the problem. The Act places duties on the employer and on the accommodation provider separately, so what outsourcing moves is…
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Surface Preparation Is Where the Warranty Is Won or Lost
When a coating fails early, the paint gets the blame. Most of the time the cause was settled before the first coat went on, in a blast that met one of three…
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HAZID and HAZOP, and What Each Should Actually Produce
Both terms get used as though they meant the same thing, usually by people commissioning one and receiving the other.
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Container Fires Start With a False Declaration
When a container ship burns, the investigation usually ends at a document rather than at the firefighting equipment. A box declared as machinery parts was stowed as machinery parts, and nothing about…
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Mooring After MEG4, and Why Painted Snap-Back Zones Mislead
Painted snap-back zones were meant to show the crew where not to stand. The problem is that the paint describes an estimate, on a deck where a parting line can reach almost…
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Cargo Liquefaction and the IMSBC Code
A cargo that looked dry and granular at the loading berth can behave as a liquid a few days into the voyage.
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Preparing for a Port State Control Inspection in Malaysian Ports
An inspector follows a predictable order and reaches for the same items every time. That makes the week before a port call a rehearsable exercise rather than a matter of luck, provided…
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Drill Records: What Inspectors Actually Look For
Every ship holds drills. Far fewer can produce a record that proves who took part, which boat was used, and that no month was missed.
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Escrow and Payment Security in Physical Petroleum Trades
A buyer who has learned to spot a fraudulent cargo offer still needs to know what a genuine one looks like when it is properly protected.
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Cyber Risk in the Safety Management System: What MSC.428(98) Actually Requires
Cyber risk stopped being an IT question in January 2021. It became an ISM Code question, which means it is audited by the same people, on the same cycle, with the same…
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MLC 2006: The Detentions That Come From Paperwork, Not Conditions
When port State control ran a targeted campaign on crew wages and employment agreements, deficiency rates jumped roughly fourfold against the preceding three years. The ships had not changed.
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Building and Keeping an Inventory of Hazardous Materials
An Inventory of Hazardous Materials is not a certificate you obtain and file. Part I is a living record of what is physically in the ship, and it has to survive twenty…
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Ballast Water Management: The D-2 Standard Is In Force
Holding the certificate no longer settles the question. Since D-2 became mandatory for every ship in scope, inspectors have moved from verifying documents to sampling what actually leaves the ship, and the…
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