Underwater Hull Repairs Save Time and Money

Hydrex teams can mobilize immediately to perform a wide range of hull repairs on any type of vessel. This article gives a summary of a few operations to illustrate the diversity of shell plating repairs their diver/technicians are trained for.

Seachest insert repair in Rotterdam

A tanker suffered leakage in the starboard side seachest of its engine room. Hydrex was asked by the owner to provide an on-site solution and sent a team to the ship’s location in Rotterdam to carry out an insert repair.

On request of the class surveyor, an NDT specialist was arranged to take thickness measurements of the starboard seachest within the engine room. These measurements showed that the damage inside the seachest was wider spread than expected.

With the result of this inspection, a complete repair plan was devised in cooperation between the teamleader, the ship’s crew and the classification society.

The seachest was emptied of water and opened.  All objects, including the water coolers and piping work, were removed from inside the seachest by the crew. The affected plating was then cut away. The Hydrex diver/welders worked in shifts to fit and weld the two insert plates. This was done with class approved full penetration welds.

When the installation was complete, a successful MPI test was carried out by an independent surveyor. As a result, the class representative gave his green light for the repair…